Title: Bad News For Those Rooting Against The US Economy - Jobelss Claims Fall Source:
Bloomberg News URL Source:http://www.bloomberg.com Published:Feb 11, 2010 Author:None Bloomberg Headline Post Date:2010-02-11 08:40:02 by war Keywords:None Views:247 Comments:4
*U.S. FOUR-WEEK CLAIMS AVERAGE FALLS TO 468,500 FROM 469,000
*U.S. PRIOR WEEK INITIAL CLAIMS REVISED TO 483,000 FROM 480,000
*U.S. JOBLESS CLAIMS LOWER THAN 465,000 MEDIAN FORECAST
*U.S. INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS FELL 43,000 TO 440,000 LAST WEEK
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance fell sharply last week, according to government data released Thursday.
There were 440,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Feb. 6, down 43,000 from a revised 483,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report.
Economists were expecting initial claims to drop to 465,000, according to a consensus estimate from Briefing.com.
The 4-week moving average of initial claims, which smoothes out volatility in the measure, was 468,500. That's down 1,000 from the previous week's revised average of 469,500.
They'll be back up on weather this week [next Thursday's release.]
Of further note is that this is the household survey week, too. The household survey is very cut and dry, you either worked or did not. Look for February's unemployment rate to be distorted...