After a dismal start to the year, pushing initial jobless claims to six-month highs, it appears ‘everything is awesome’ again as despite surging layoffs (Challenger, Grey and headline after headline in the press), initial claims tumbled to 262k this week – just above the 43 year lows of last fall. It’s not all ponnies and unicorns of course as continuing claims rise once again to 2.273mm – just shy of the highest levels in 7 months.

Initial claims tumble sback towards 43 years lows…

But continuing claims surge to 7 month highs…

We are sure as long as the Dow keeps falling that the Fed will stay on hold but this “good” data is clearly not helping the dives case.

Charts: Bloomberg