Anyone anticipating some earth-shattering release from the DOL in its weekly initial claims report as a guide what to expect tomorrow was disappointed following the release of a 346K print today, which was about as close to the 345K expected without the DOL losing all credibility. This followed last week's naturally upward revised 354K to 357K print, although the problem is that it appears this was it for the 'downward trend' in initial claims which goes back to the thesis that 7.5% unemployment is the new 4.4% unemployment. Continuing claims came better than expected at 2952K on 2974K expected. Also, damn it doesn't feel good to be a government worker - "there were 17,862 former Federal civilian employees claiming UI benefits for the week ending May 18, an increase of 551 from the previous week." Blame the sequester. There was no good news for veterans either: "Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 35,944, an increase of 614 from the prior week." Bottom line: a nebulous report which provides zero additional insight into what to expect in tomorrow's NFP and thus zero color into what the Fed may do with... "THE TAPER" dun dun dun.
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