By Peter Boockvar - December 15th, 2011, 10:02AM
Initial Claims encouraging
Encouragingly, Initial Jobless Claims totaled 366k, well below expectations of 390k, down from 385k last week (revised up by 4) and the lowest since May ’08. The 4 week avg fell to 388k from 394k. Continuing Claims rose by 4k but were below estimates. Extended Benefits did rise by a sharp 332k but that is delayed by two weeks. Bottom line, this level of claims is a definite positive and the Labor Dept said there were no distortions to account for the fall. There is of course a bridge between a slowdown in the pace of firings and a sustainable, large pick up in hiring’s (especially in light of the global economic concerns) but this slowing in the pace of claims filings is good to see.
NY Mfr’g
The Dec NY mfr’g survey, the 1st Dec industrial # out, rose to 9.5 from .6 and was better than the est of 3.0. The components though were mixed as New Orders rose to 5.1 from -2.1 but
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/12/initial-claims-ny-mfrg-ip/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Picture%29
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
| 
