…below the 12.5% YoY increase necessary to trigger a new caution. Jobless claims: a good example of why my forecasting discipline demands a confirmed trend, Angry Bear, New Deal democrat…

Initial claims improve weekly, continue to suggest slow weaking  – by New Deal democrat [Reminder: I’m still traveling, so with no economic news, don’t expect a post tomorrow.] Initial jobless…

…1.725 million: For forecasting purposes, the YoY% change is more important. There, initial claims are up 10.6%, while the 4 week average is up 13.0%. Continuing claims are up 28.4%…

…last Thursday, initial jobless claims have a nearly flawless 60+ year record for forecasting the trend in the unemployment rate. Here’s the supporting graph: The red line (the unemployment rate…

…the subset with the least noise and most signal are single family permits. Next are housing starts, which are much noisier than permits, although they represent actual economic activity. Perhaps…

…the YoY% basis more important for forecasting, initial claims were up 12.1%, the 4 week average up 10.8%, and continuing claims up 29.5%: While this indicates weakness, it does not…

…207,000. The more important 4 week moving average declined -2,500 to 208,750. With a one week lag, continuing claims declined -1,000 to 1.664 million: More importantly for forecasting purposes, YoY…

…saw this spring and summer has fed into more coincident data, as perhaps suggested by the big September increase over 300,000 in employment. We’ll see. For forecasting purposes, the YoY%…

…the YoY basis, which is more important for forecasting, initial claims were up 4.5%, the four-week average up 3.4%, and very much conversely, continuing claims up 28.7%: Basically, there are…

…forecasting, were higher by 6.4% for weekly claims, and 3.8% for the most important 4 week average. Continuing claims were higher by 27.0%: Since initial claims are not higher by…