The big headline from today is that U.S. jobless claims fall to lowest in four and a half years. Sounds great doesn’t it? Yes, it’s too good to be true. Even BLS isn’t defending the number, noting that one large state failed to report some of their quarterly state figures. Hmmm. I wonder which big blue state did that. California maybe?
ZERO HEDGE – This is just getting stupid. After expectations of a rebound in initial claims from 367K last week (naturally revised higher to 369K), to 370K (with the lowest of all sellside expectations at 355K), the past week mysteriously, yet so very unsurprisingly in the aftermath of the fudged BLS unemployment number, saw claims tumble to a number that is so ridiculous not even CNBC’s Steve Liesman bothered defending it, or 339K. Ironically, not even the Labor Department is defending it: it said that “one large state didn’t report some quarterly figures.” Great, but what was reported was a headline grabbing number that is just stunning for reelection purposes. This was the lowest number since 2008. The only point to have this print? For 2-3 bulletin talking points at the Vice Presidential debate tonight. Everything else is now noise.