While the mainstream media was reporting that jobless claims were steady last week, the real picture was more nuanced. The media reports only the seasonally smoothed number, which can obscure what’s really going on and is often late in recognizing trend changes because of the inherent smoothing. I liken it to Impressionist Art. It’s an attempt to represent reality, but it isn’t reality. It’s more beautiful than reality.
The actual number showed a decline in claims this week, as is normal for this week in May. It was a smaller decline than last year, but a stronger performance than the previous 10 year average.
Actual, not seasonally manipulated, weekly initial unemployment claims, while volatile week to week, have continued to decrease at a relatively constant rate over time since mid 2010.
In the week ended May 12, actual claims fell by 15,600 including the usual upward adjustment of 4,000 due to incomplete state counts at the time of the advance release (current week). This week wasn’t as strong as the week ended May 14, 2011, when claims fell by 36,200 but it was better than the 10 year average of a decline of 5800 for the same week of May.
There’s a lot of week to week volatility in the data. Looking at a two week span this year showed a decline of 6,700 versus a decline of 54,400 in the same 2 weeks in 2011. So this year was much weaker than the similar period last year. It’s too soon to say if this is a sign that the trend of improvement has reversed, but it could be a canary in the coal mine.
The year to year decline was 9.6% which remains strong. Total claims in the current week were 327,000, including the upward adjustment for the usual weekly revision, versus 362,000 in the same week last year. While this is a good indication that fewer people are losing jobs, it does not tell us how many are finding work.
Initial Unemployment Claims - Click to enlarge
Plotted on an inverse scale, the correlation with stock prices is strong. Both are driven by the Fed’s operations with Primary Dealers as covered weekly in the Professional Edition Fed Report. See also The Conomy Game, a free report.
Initial Unemployment Claims and Stock Prices- Click to enlarge
As the number of workers eligible for unemployment compensation has trended upward slightly since 2009, the percentage of workers filing first time claims has continued to decline.
Initial Unemployment Claims Percentage of Total Employed - Click to enlarge
The chart below gives a longer term perspective. We can see the trend improving but still above the bubble years with their 10 million fake jobs taking orders for new and unneeded condos and houses, building them, and taking and processing mortgage applications. This however does not account for the thousands of mortgage industry executives and Wall Street bankers who should be in jail but who still have jobs, and still bribe politicians.
Initial Unemployment Claims Long View - Click to enlarge
The following chart is a picture of reality versus the the Impressionist art of seasonal adjustments. Sometimes it represents reality to some degree, and sometimes it doesn’t. If you are following that data, at any given time you have no way of knowing which it is. One thing is certain. It ain’t photo-realism. There are ways to measure trends using actual data. One way is shown on this chart, which is to show the year to year line as of the current and corresponding date. Another is to view the annual rate of change as shown in the first chart above.
Initial Claims, Seasonally Manipulated vs. Actual - Click to enlarge
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We may be skating on very thin ice here, but the weight of the evidence still supports a weak bull case for the near to intermediate term. So I’m adding buy picks on the chart pick list and adjusting trailing stops to account for the risk.
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These reports are not investment advice. They are for informational purposes, for a broad audience of investment and trading professionals, and other experienced investors and traders. Chart pick performance changes week to week and past performance may not indicate future results, as you know. Trading involves risk, and these reports assume that you understand those risks and manage them according to your tolerance.
