Jobless claims drop, durable goods orders rise

The US economy got a couple of pieces of good news — as long as one doesn’t look too closely at the details.  First, the weekly jobless claims level dropped to 353,000, the second time in three weeks the series has seen a significant decline:

In the week ending July 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 353,000, a decrease of 35,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 388,000. The 4-week moving average was 367,250, a decrease of 8,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 376,000.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending July 14, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending July 14 was 3,287,000, a decrease of 30,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,317,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,309,000, a decrease of 3,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,312,750.

That would be good news, but the recent volatility in the series leads one towards a little skepticism, especially since each week provides a new upward revision to the last report.  Two weeks ago, the obvious issue was the Independence Day holiday, which always plays hob with this measure.  There were no holidays last week, so presumably this is more solid.  We’ll see soon enough.

Read more: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/26/jobless-claims-drop-durable-goods-orders-rise/