US initial jobless claims 199K vs 220K expected

• Prior was 214K (revised to 215K)
• Continuing claims 1.866M vs 1.923M prior

The claims numbers over the holidays are highly volatile and subject to large seasonal revisions so they’re poor numbers to index from.

The drop over a number of weeks is notable though and is tracking towards the bottom end of this range again. Next week’s data will also be highly-subject to holiday seasonality but in early January, watch the numbers.

The US government shutdown made this a tough report to read through but it’s tough to see where the Federal Reserve is seeing weakening in the US jobs market based on this chart. Some policymakers argue it’s a ‘low higher, low firing’ economy and that there is some evidence for that but the ‘low firing part’ seems to be the most definitive, as shown in claims.

This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.