Continuing Claims

In a absolutely shocking development, initial claims for the week ended May 5 printed in line with expectations of 370K, but to make the Mainstream Media's life easy and unleash all those "Initial Claims Decline by 2,000" headlines, last week's number was increased from 370K to 372K (ignore that NSA number increased by 2,515). Continuing claims missed expectations of 3250K printing at 3260K, but down from an upward revised 3289K. Needs to say this week's 370K adjusted print will be revised higher to 372-373K and the MSM will fall for it all over again. More importantly, the ongoing collapse in those collecting extended benefits now that legislation has halted extensions is becoming more acute: 40K dropped off Extended Claims and EUCs. More importantly, Durable Goods rose by 0.2% in April to $215.5 billion, as expected. However, when removing the traditionally volatile transportation component, Durable goods slid by 0.6% on expectation of a 0.8% increase; compared to -0.8% in March; Cutting out Capital Goods and Non-Defense Aircraft, the collapse was even worse, printing at -1.9% on expectations of a 0.8% print. And the March number was slashed from -0.8% to -2.2%. The is now the second in a row (see below). Cue downward revisions to Q2 GDP any second.

Stop us when this sounds familiar. Last week's 365K number has been revised to 368K, which is where the expectations for this week's print were. Instead, we got 367K claims this week, a 1K beat to expectations, which will be a 2K miss next week of course, but at least the pre-election propaganda media has their headline: "Initial Claims improve by 1,000." And scene. Naturally, the same thing happened for continuing claims, which beat expectations of 3275K, printing at 3229K, with the last week's print revised to 3290K from 3276K. The more disturbing form an end demand standpoint data, is that yet another 40K dropped off extended claims and EUCs. Finally in what is the best new for the market, and worst for the Economy, is that the March trade deficit soared to $51.8 billion, on expectations of -$50 billion, which was the biggest trade balance drop in 10 months. What this means is that Q1 GDP which already is tracking at 1.9%, just got lobbed to 1.5%. Yes: the Q1 GDP first revision will likely show the 2.2% number is now in the low to mid 1% range.

Well, we were half right earlier when we predicted a miss in claims coupled with a material upward revision in the prior number. We did get the revision from 388K to 392K for the week ended April 21, but the current week, which was expected to print at 379K, came at a far better 365K, a drop of 27,000 from the revised number, which happens to be the biggest percentage drop since July 2011, and the biggest expectations beat since July 2009. In other words, baffle them with bullshit as economic doctrine continues: will NFP beat tomorrow, won't it? All depends on when Bernanke feels like launching the NEW QE. In other words, the number came in good (for the first time in 6 weeks), which of course is horrible news for a market which continues to levitate higher on hopes of more monetary heroin.

If Goldman's recent predictive track record is any indication, tomorrow's NFP will be a disaster.

The guesstimates have all the accuracy of a coin flip.

In an essay by Pimco's Tony Crescenzi, using the old and worn out title "To QE or Not to QE", which asks just that question, one of the lines of analysis focuses on the traditional conventional wisdom relationship between the jobless rate and initial claims for unemployment insurance. Tony says that this correlation leads him to believe that the unemployment rate is lower than where it official stands because, "Progress has been made, for example, on the employment front, with the six-month moving average for private payroll gains increasing to 214,000 per month in the six months ended in February 2012 from 160,000 per month in the 12 months prior. Importantly, weekly filings for initial jobless claims have fallen to a four-year low, fully 100k below year-ago levels and in territory consistent with a further decline in the unemployment rate (see Figure 1)." So far so good, and indeed if one very simplistically tracks merely the unemployment rate to jobless claims, the picture does indeed seem rosier than it currently is. The problem however, is that as always happens in this case, initial claims reflect only a discrete component of the true unemployment situation in the New Normal, which more than anything is characterized by one specific feature: the avalanche like implosion of the labor force, and the departure of millions of people, almost monthly from the labor pool, noted so very often on these pages, and recently forcing even Goldman and JP Morgan to ask whether Okun's law is not in fact broken precisely because of this. As such there is one other correlation that in our humble opinion should be tracked far more closely when trying to anticipate the unemployment rate: that of the unemployment rate but not just to initial claims, but rather to initial and continuing claims, as well as extended benefits and EUCs, which provide a far better picture of those who are truly falling out of the labor pool. And as the chart below shows, when using that far more accurate New Normal correlation, the picture is decided worse. In fact, instead of a sub-7% implied unemployment rate, the true implied unemployment rate is just over 12.5.

Jobless claims still are good news but their newest news is not so good news. The progress on claims falling is less than we thought and the current momentum is diminished.

The big broad downtrend is still there but the recent downtrend which saw the pace of claims falling faster has had its wings clipped. Too soon to say if this is a key development or not. But it could drive optimists to drink.

Following last Thursday's weekly claims release we said "Initial Claims Beat Expectations, To Miss Next Week Following Revision" and sure enough, last week's 348K beat of 350K expectations has been revised wildly higher, to 364K, meaning the initial beat was not only a miss, it was wide by a mile relative to the 350K preliminary expectation. But robots do not care - all they care is the current print, which however this time also missed, printing at 359K on expectations of a 350K number. This is the first 4 week increase in the 4 week SMA since September as the weather impact of the record warm winter starts to fade away, as explained yesterday. Same gimmicks in the continuing claims number too which like everything out of the BLS is so meaningless for concurrent data, we will probably just wait until the next week revision to get a sense of what is truly happening. More troubling is that 78K people fell of extended and EUC claims as more and more drop out of the workforce. This means the unemployment rate just dropped courtesy of even more people giving up on finding work. Thank heavens for BLS math. In other news, the final Q4 GDP revision came unchanged at 3.0%, in line with expectations. There were no major changes to the components, however Personal consumption did decline modestly from the second revision's 1.52% to 1.47%. It also appears that the government has been consistently taking away less and less from "growth", detracting 0.93%, 0.89% and 0.84% with every consecutive revision. Overall, a wash, meaning March is about to close with about with 17 misses out of 19 key economic indicators.

Same old, same old from the BLS: with initial claims expected to print at 350K, we get a number that is just better, or 348K - supposedly the best since February 2008, however one which will be revised to about 351K next week, hence a miss, in line with the perpetual +3K upward statistical bias each and every week demonstrated by the BLS, which is no longer even funny. To be sure, last week's 351K was just raised to 353K, just so that headlines can announce a 5K drop in claims week over week. Continuing claims printed at 3.352MM, down from an upward revised 3.361MM. And yes, initial claims are lowest since February 2008... Until one adds the continuing claims, EUCs and Extended Claims as seen in the chart below. The 99 week cliff saw a total of 18K drop from total rolls: these are now 1MM lower compared to a year ago.

After deconstructing the labor report for signs of false positives, Michael Cembalest of JPMorgan, sees muddle-through data in the US as sustaining a below trend growth rate - noting his belief that the US economy would not withstand a withdrawal of stimulus (read promise of liqudity to come) right now. While not as ebulient as many on the street, the JPM CIO sees a US job market that is gradually getting better - as is spending. However, what keeps him up at night is the budget deficit (as we noted very specifically last night). Critically, jobless claims have just crossed a threshold that in the past has signaled risk-on is primed to pay-off as the business cycle becomes self-sustaining but at the same time, the budget deficit is at massively 'different-this-time' levels. As he notes: "But as Big Bird used to say, one of these things is not like the other: the US primary budget deficit which supports this recovery is a bigger now", and so the US economy had better improve markedly in order to merely 'pay-the-freight'. "I lose a lot of sleep over this, but I don’t know a lot of other people that do."

Initial claims print +362K, missing consensus of 352K, and up from a upward revised, (of course) 354K. As a reminder, last week's print was expected to be 355K, instead coming at 351K spiking the market far higher. Needless to say, the response would have been far more muted had the number come at its true final print of virtually on top of expectations, but who cares anymore - everyone appears to enjoy lying and being lied to. That this miss comes ahead of a critical NFP print will likely have some scratching their heads especially since this is the first time we have seen three consecutive weeks of rises since August 2010. Also keep in mind next week, today's 362K will be upward revised to 365K. Hence the immediate if not sooner need for more, more, more QE. Continuing claims also missed at 3416K vs exp. of 3400K, and rising from an upwardly revised 3406K. Finally, EUCs and Extended benefits rose by 27K. Finally, when it comes to comparing before and after, we think it always makes sense to see the full picture, not just initial claims, and account for continuing and extended. Here is what it looks like for all those who tell us that the labor situation is as good as it was in 2008.

A rather uneventful initial claims report which came in line with the election year expectations, beating consensus of +355K modestly, at 351K, which is where it was last week, except for the traditional 100% of the time, upward revision to last week's data, which was pushed higher from 351K to 353K, and in turn which will force algos to read the news as a decline in claims. Today's number gets some additional scrutiny as it comes in the NFP survey week. Continuing claims same deal: the number came a little better than expectations of 3418K at 3402K, was a deterioration compared to the unrevised last week number of 3392K but an improvement to the revised # which was 3404K. On the other hand, people at the trailing end of the cliff declined, as those on EUCs and Extended benefits dropped by 16K in the week ended February 11. As a result, people collecting extended benefits are now 1.13 million less than a year ago, and no longer collect direct BLS benefits. As for disability that's a different matter. Finally, none of this impacts America's young workers, who as noted yesterday, have an employment rate of 54%.

Snooze of an update from the BLS, which reported that this week's initial claims printed at 351K, slightly better than expected at 355K, but offset by the now perpetual (thus statistically impossible) upward revision in prior week claims, which increased from 348K to 351K, so unchanged week over week. Next week this 351K will be revised to 354K so on top of expectations. That this is driven primarily by ongoing abnormally hot weather (remember the lamentations over last year's cold winter and how it was impacting data adversely - odd how we continue to hear nothing about the opposite phenomenon) is largely ignored. Instead what we will hear is how claims printed at the lowest in 4 years (chart 1). And yet we will hear nothing about how when one adds initial claims to continuing claims to extended benefits, we are just a little bit higher than 4 years ago (chart 2).

The onslaught of 'favorable' jobs numbers continues with the latest initial claims printing at 348K, down from an upward revised 361K, on expectations of a rise to 365K. This was the lowest number since March 2008. As a reminder, the abnormally warm January and February weather as discussed previously by David Rosenberg is a key reason in the ongoing favorable impression of the economy that this data skew creates. Granted the self-delusion of employers is just as palpable as that of market participants: claims went from sub 400K in the days before Lehman to nearly 600K in the weeks after. Continuing claims printed at 3.426MM down from 3.526MM, on expectations of 3.495K. Those seeing the 99-week expire increased as 23K people dropped out of EUCs and Extended Claims. Expect to see this "favorable" trend reverse within weeks, as the groundwork for more easing has to be set (more on that shortly). Elsewhere, the headline PPI came below expectations of 0.4%, printing at 0.1%, up from -0.1% previously, while Core PPI, paradoxically, beat this time, rising from 0.3% to 0.4%, on consensus of a decline to 0.2%. Finally Housing Starts was a meaningless and noisy 699K on expectations of 675K, where it has been crawling along the bottom for years. Permits Missed Expectations of 680K coming at 676K.

Just in case the BLS seasonal adjustment needed a little confirmation prodding, here comes the BLS with its weekly initial claims number which at 358K (next week to be revised to over 360K), was a pleasant beat of expectations of 370K, down from an upward revised 373K the prior week. Offsetting this was an increase in continuing claims by 64K from 3437K to 3515K, up from an upward revised 3451K. According to Bloomberg's Joseph Brusuelas the underlying trend “supports modest improvement in labor market." Elsewhere, the net addition to EUCs and Extended benefits was a total of +19k. What this means is that the layoff wave of the temp worker hiring binge for the holiday season, is now ending. As for actual full time job additions, we will have to wait and see the "unadjusted" BLS data for that.