Initial jobless claims saw their biggest beat in almost 4 years to the lowest absolute (seasonally adjusted level) in almost 5 years. The market's initial reaction was a shrug (is good bad now that the Fed is pinned to jobs or is the market getting wise in the ways of seasonal-adjustment shenanigans?) but now it appears to be buying the new 'old' normal (+6 points). In the unadjusted data, things look very different - with a lag, New York (37,189), Georgia (15,354), and North Carolina (13,606) saw major rises in initial claims with only Michigan (-12,536) seeing a decent drop in claims - as we note that non-seasonally-adjusted claims rose notably less than in the prior 4 years, and assuming seasonal-adjustments are triggered from those, this will reflect very rosily on today's seasonal adjustment. With Claims back to 'normal', what will the Fed do?
Initial Claims SA - best since Feb 2008 (back to normal)!!
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Initial Claims NSA - lower seasonals suggest
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As Deutsche's Joe Lavorgna notes: "We are hesitant to read too much into this because claims are very volatile on a week to week basis, and the seasonal factors tend to be large this time of year."