Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decline to 374,000
Submitted by
CalculatedRisk on Thu, 07/05/2012 - 5:38am (129 comments)
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Hussman suicide watch?
^ I'm with Stupid ^
renewed weakness in Unemployment:
How special!
Nice first, HG!
ECRI will ask for another quarter ...
Eric wrote:
Strange ... Rajesh was first.
CalculatedRisk wrote:
When CR is doing a
run, look out!
It's all containmented, part 2.
EU deal doesn't go beyond current treaties - Merkel
| Reuters
C
Is this the right place?
HomeGnome wrote:
Don't be so hard on yourself.
Counterpointer wrote:
"Official denial!"
Metabolic syndrome? Obese? Autistic children? Type 2?
Head over to Golden Corral:
Cotton Candy at Golden Corral - Golden Corral Community
Care for some whole wheat
?
Hot Fourth of July - chicagotribune.com
Gluten free?
Counterpointer wrote:
Don't you mean: "focus on the numerous EU treaties while I quietly end Germany's forced austerity"?
RealClearPolitics - Politics - Jul 04, 2012 - Rehberg blames housing bust on federal government
Rehberg has repeatedly referred to the problems with mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as he challenges incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat. Rehberg often criticizes U.S. government rules that he says forced lenders to take bad loans.
And at the first debate between with Tester, Rehberg went further and said bankers, builders and consumers were not the problem.
"They were sucked into something believing that the government told them, that they can get something for nothing, that they can buy a home for zero down and zero interest, that they can keep doing that," Rehberg said.
The term gluten-free is generally used to indicate a supposed harmless level of gluten rather than a complete absence.[5] The exact level at which gluten is harmless is uncertain and controversial. A recent systematic review tentatively concluded that consumption of less than 10 mg of gluten per day is unlikely to cause histological abnormalities, although it noted that few reliable studies had been done
Gluten-free diet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Whoops
YouTube - The 2012 Big Bay Boom San Diego Firework Show
CalculatedRisk wrote:
Picking up quarters in front of a steamroller?
Later Taters.
No rest for the weary.
I can never keep these straight. Is employment a leading, lagging or coincident indicator? If its not a leading indicator does it tell us much about where we are heading?
arthur_dent wrote:
Depends on what you need the numbers to say.
tl,dr: Yes.
Eric wrote:
I think the firms that produce them are considered "Manufacturing" in USSA.
curious wrote:
I expect this meme to grow.
The S&L debacle resulted in further deregulation ... why should this housing bust be any different?
Bank of England injects $78-billion into flagging economy - The Globe and Mail
Thursday, Jul. 05 2012, 7:19 AM EDT
Rickkk wrote:
Old news, we already went super-
On that, and have already given it all back and more.
Definitely into the "three hours" zone, maybe even "three minutes" here.
Yes, yes the economies of the UK, the EZ and China are all going so strongly that their respective central banks have decided on QE and rate cuts...
Eric wrote:
Got
?
arthur_dent wrote:
Humor appreciated ... but that aside ...
First Time Claims is generally believed to be a leading indicator. However, this assumes that there is actually a trend that it is indicating. There hasn't actually really been a trend of any sort for about the last six months. So, as long as it continues bouncing between 350-400K ... (which I personally think could continue for another couple of years) ... no ... the FTC report doesn't really tell us much of anything. If/when it exceeds 400k for a month or more ... or if it goes below 350k for a month or more .. then, it's indicating something. Until then, it's just one of the few official government reports that is weekly, so it will continue making "news" each week.
DXY bullish, equities bearish, sell cos relatively lower likelihood of more Fed QE.
More inverse capitalism.
C
Costco, other retailers miss June sales estimates
| Reuters
Costco and other retail chains on Thursday reported June sales that missed Wall Street's lowered expectations as persistently high unemployment and falling consumer confidence took a toll on spending.
...
"In June, the consumer put on a very cautious hat, they started pulling back," said Keith Jelinek, director in AlixPartners' global retail practice.
Does this
make me look cautious?
Simon Johnson: Lie More, as a Business Model - NYTimes.com
July 5, 2012, 5:00 AM
"They like to call themselves “banks,” but they aren’t banks in any traditional sense. They are global behemoths that are not just too-big-to-fail but also too-big-to-regulate and too-big-to-manage."
Mhm, the "real" economy is NOT doing very well at all. In their infinite wisdom our overseers took it off life support (we could only save one or the other: bankers or citizens), guess which one they picked?
Comrade Kristina wrote:
Y U H8 Amerika?
Comrade Kristina wrote:
MOAR LIFE SUPPORT (for the bankers)
curious wrote:
Macys? WetSeal? Is it just possible that they missed their estimates because all they do is sell shit?
IKR? I guess I'm just that way, Eric.
They missed because they sell stuff to working people not wealthy people. Wealthy people are the only ones that can afford to spend now. Welcome to third world status.
Japan's atomic disaster caused by collusion : panel report
| Top News
| Reuters
Any increases in nouse prices where you are Kristina?
Limey Interbankster Obvious Ruse.
C
Not that I'm aware of, Liz. The same ones still rotting and falling down as last month...and the month before that...and so on.
Counterpointer wrote:
Lords of the international oligarch regime?
Bubblisimo Gerkinov wrote:
Where's Corzine?
EXCLUSIVE: Jon Corzine a pariah in the Hamptons - NYPOST.com
Lending Inter-Bank? Obviously Rigged.
Hiring by private companies unexpectedly accelerated in June, with the 176,000 new jobs surpassing economists’ expectations, new data from payroll giant ADP shows.
The word unexpectedly in an economic report means approximately "the forecasters don't know shit".
Comrade Kristina wrote:
Less people drinking highballs @ 6:30A in the redneck riviera ?
Yeah, because we don't have summer hiring every year for tourism season. Nope.
Comrade Kristina wrote:
I didn't realize that being a working person also meant that you dressed like a clown.
Good Morning
Glad to see poor Corzine is 65. At least he has SS to help supplement his income.
Countrywide Used Loan Discounts To Buy Congress, Fannie Mae Execs, Other Government Officials: Report
07/05/12
WASHINGTON -- The former Countrywide Financial Corp., whose subprime loans helped start the nation's foreclosure crisis, made hundreds of discount loans to buy influence with members of Congress, congressional staff, top government officials and executives of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae, according to a House report.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said the discounts – from January 1996 to June 2008 – were not only aimed at gaining influence for the company but to help mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Countrywide's business depended largely on Fannie, which at the time was trying to fend off more government regulation but eventually had to come under government control.
The Justice Department has not prosecuted any Countrywide official... all of their names had surfaced previously."
Churlish boor and a choad...
My favorite tweet of the morning.
Oh, liz, I see zillow has my zestimate up 4k to 131K. I'm above water, yay! I think I'll celebrate with a HELOC and a vacation
Finally! We will know we've punished the bankers when one them is photographed looking kinda glum outside of a Starbucks near his $500K Hamptons vacation home.
JimPortlandOR wrote:
ECRI, Hussman, Shilling? Moody's, Fitch?
energyecon wrote:
A two for one special on personalities?
Malware may knock thousands off Internet on Monday - thestar.com
"Despite repeated alerts, the number of computers that are probably infected is more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April. Of those still infected, the FBI believes that about 64,000 are in the United States. In Canada, about 7,000 computers remain infected, CBC News reports.
Users whose computers are still infected Monday will lose their ability to go online, and they will have to call their Internet service providers for help....
The problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of more than 570,000 infected computers around the world. When the FBI went in to take down the hackers late last year, agents realized that if they turned off the malicious servers being used to control the computers, all the victims would lose their Internet service.
In a highly unusual move, the FBI set up a safety net. They brought in a private company to install two clean Internet servers to take over for the malicious servers so that people would not suddenly lose their Internet access.
But that temporary system will be shut down at 12:01 a.m. EDT Monday, July 9."
Whiskey wrote:
French gunman 'planned German hostage execution' |
News.com.au
help supplement his income
I would not be surprised to discover he has millions tucked away...laying low for a bit is a good idea
Whiskey wrote:
"Finally! We will know we've punished the bankers when one them is photographed looking kinda glum outside of a Starbucks near his $500K Hamptons vacation home."
Is that their version of a perp walk?
Redmond Special:
Monday, Microsoft announced a record low price for the upcoming Windows 8, telling customers that they could upgrade their PCs -- even aged machines running Windows XP -- for just $39.99 later this year.
I can't decide whether to forget 15 years of Windows interaction (and end up with a messy screen with fingermarks all over it). $40.00 is tempting however.
We elect the stupid:
Lawmaker Accidentally Approved Fracking in North Carolina
"Now here’s a lesser-known fact. The Higgs could have been discovered about a decade earlier — and in Texas rather than Switzerland. Back in the 1980s, American physicists were developing a particle accelerator three times as powerful as Europe’s Large Hadron Collider. But Congress eventually cut off funds and the project collapsed. Steven Weinberg, a physicist and Nobel laureate involved in the planning,"
Why the Higgs boson wasn’t discovered in America
Also Texas didn't want to mess with God's Work.
Rickkk wrote
version of a perp walk
Yup...and no sugar in the coffee
Rickkk wrote:
And why don't they prosecute the members of Congress, staff, etc who took those loans?
I bet Pearl could dig into those docs and find all the lies.
comrade mike wrote:
People get the government they deserve™
Josap:
I bet Pearl could dig into those docs and find all the lies.
wouldn't it be more time efficient to assume all lies and look just for the facts/truth?
Barclays’ ex-CEO Diamond says traders’ emails made him ‘physically ill’ - thestar.com
LONDON—"Robert E. Diamond Jr., the former chief executive of Barclays, defended the bank’s response to a rate-manipulation scandal as he testified Wednesday before a British parliamentary committee.
Diamond, who resigned Tuesday after the bank reached a $450 million (U.S.) settlement with U.S. and British authorities related to the manipulation of key interest rates, said the actions of 14 traders at the bank that were connected with the scandal had made him “physically sick.”
Apartment rents rise at highest rate since 2007: Reis - chicagotribune.com
"Generation Y has also been a driving force for higher rental prices in urban areas, particularly in cities like New York and San Francisco, where job markets are relatively strong. Even though home ownership costs less than renting, young professionals prefer to rent apartments in tightly packed cities than move out to the spacious suburbs, Severino said.
"This generation doesn't hold home ownership on a pedestal the way prior generations did," he said."
And that paradigm shift is permanent.
Two employment reports from independent sources that beat consensus estimates. Not evidence of imminent recession.
The 4-week average of initial claims, however, looks like it's starting to rise persistently. If it keeps up like this for a few more months, that would be a solid warning that the economy is headed into recession, IMO.
Sebastian
Spain at 6.66
Just so awesome:
"But Collier defended the flyer this week, saying that he isn’t a racist — just that “the white race is God’s chosen people”
Alabama Pastor Holds 'Whites Only' Conference | ThinkProgress
China surprises with second rate cut this year
- The Globe and Mail
Jul. 05 2012,
“The fact that China is actually cutting lending and deposit rates is a bigger deal than just reducing the reserve requirement,” said David Morrison, market strategist at GFT Global. “But there’s a great big Chinese data dump next week, so the question is whether this is a heads-up that the data will not be as good as hoped.”
KarmaPolice wrote:
I saw that earlier about the Pastor. Not surprising behavior for Alabama.
High Fructose Corn Syrup and ethanol to skyrocket:
NYT: Dust Bowl fears as heat shrivels Midwest corn - US news - The New York Times - msnbc.com
Result: Healthier Americans and better fuel mileage.
energyecon wrote:
Another case of "Welcome to the bifurconomy."
BarleyReturns wrote:
Barley is loaded with gluten...
Hussman suicide watch?
just for the record -
last recession started december 2007 ... we first hit a 400K claims in july 2008 ... and that was with millions more employed than currently.
lawyerliz wrote:
,,,or mouse prices?
Rickkk wrote:
Every company in China is run with two books. One for public consumption and one for personal. A Chinese data dump is just that....a dump....and nothing more.
comrade mike wrote:
Cinco-X wrote:
Well then, we know what barley returns...
tapped out consumer ... heat not helping -
MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul. 5, 2012-- Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) today reported that its net retail sales for the five weeks ended June 30, 2012 were $6,419 million, an increase of 2.6 percent from $6,256 million for the five weeks ended July 2, 2011. On this same basis, June comparable-store sales increased 2.1 percent.
“Following better-than-expected performance in May, our June comparable-store sales were near the low end of our expected range," said Gregg Steinhafel, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Target Corporation. "We believe these results, combined with our outlook for July, keep us on-track to deliver second quarter sales and adjusted EPS in line with the guidance we provided at the time of our first quarter earnings release.”
Target : Investors : Financial News Release
I hear that high supply is driving down louse prices.
black dog wrote:
so, sounds like a highly valuable leading indicator.
Whiskey wrote:
If you need lice, we've a price that's nice!
The SCSC was going to cost a fortune and it wasn't going to kill anyone. Hard to justify to a Republican. In fairness, it may well have been over to threshold of too much investment for too little return. Sort of like the Space Shuttle or the International Space Station (which became international after it became apparent that the US couldn't afford to go it alone).
If only half the money that would have gone to the SuperConducting Supercollider went to more modest science, we probably came out ahead on the deal.
black dog wrote:
How good of a metric on the economy is target? Stable, because in bad times the Marshal Fields crowds visits, and in good times Wal*Mart?
Corzine Sagaponack home rents for $900,000 for the SUMMER « Hamptons Real Estate Blog
While it was his ex-wife's house I assume he probably isn't exactly slumming it - you might need to add a few zero's to your $500k...
With the power out in so many places, for a week or so - will people get paid for the work them miss?
Maybe some will, I'm guessing some won't.
Nor will those people be out shopping at the closed stores.
KENYA CENTRAL BANK CUTS BENCHMARK RATE TO 16.5% FROM 18%
IIRC Reagan wanted one (and only one) Big Science project, and he chose the ISS over the SCSC. I think he liked the international cooperation aspects of it, wanted to see peaceful US-USSR cooperation in space as part of his legacy.
$500k gets you a corrugated tin hut in the Hamptons.
more tapping (out) -
MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul. 5, 2012-- Kohl’s Corporation (NYSE: KSS) reported today that for the five-week month ended June 30, 2012 total sales decreased 2.6 percent and comparable store sales decreased 4.2 percent from the five-week month ended July 2, 2011.
Kevin Mansell, Kohl’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, commented, “Though June sales were again lower than expectations, we are encouraged by improved sales in the latter weeks of the month as we continued to build inventory levels. From a line of business perspective, Men’s and Footwear were the strongest categories. The Midwest was the strongest region.”
Investor Relations
Mike in Long Island wrote:
Maybe that's just the monthly nut.
With no jobs, no money, and no home we are happy:
Economic Indicators: U.S. Consumer Comfort Index - Bloomberg
josap wrote:
Probably a lot of OT for the Electric Co/Arbor types. I wonder if it will hit the budget of the guy who was making bouns by deferring maintenance?
The shuttle killed space exploration. It's a massive boondoggle that can only enter low earth orbit. I wonder what would happen if the U.S. simply restarted its space program with a next-gen Saturn program with better materials, computers, and propulsion systems.
How good of a metric on the economy is target?
sum luk won me over ... so goes Target, so goes Amerika ...
Are savers in Germany ticked off by the ZIRP policy?
One of the biggest problems with using unemployment to predict the next recession is the current level of staffing at government and private firms. In a lot of cases, it is already lean, with bad decisions still being made to exploit the workers you have mercilessly and not to hire.
So, when the slowdown happens, it will start imperceptibly, with lower hours worked, and overtime dropping- just like dryfly has been talking about lead times crashing.
Expectations of sharply rising unemployment similar to the end of the last boom are not in the cards. Instead, I fully expect to see it in slowing retail sales and lower profits as the recession bites- which means that Wall Street will be fully unprepared to deal with a recession in the new economy.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Corzine's ex-wife subsequently sold that house for @ $50 million to David Tepper who promptly tore it down to - presumably - build something nicer.
Billionaire David Tepper tears down $43.5million Hamptons house to build another one | Mail Online
The way I hear it, that should read Every company in China is run with at least two sets of books. There may well be more than two.
I'm generally supportive of China and am infinitly pleased to see a quarter of the human race rising out of abject poverty. But I think that investing money there is something that should be reserved only for geniuses and fools. I believe there are many more of the latter than the former.
Whiskey wrote:
Private enterprise couldn't use the free market to do magic, while the government extracts rents through regulations and licensing fees.
Billionaire David Tepper tears down $43.5million Hamptons house to build another one | Mail Online
Hedge funders make banksters look like lowlifes.
comrade mike wrote:
that reading in 2000 was +40.
Thanks. The 500K figure was a pure guess on my part, and I see I was off by a factor of 2. I still don't understand the appeal, though, of bankers spending a large portion of their after-tax bonus money on a Hamptons retreat.
So, when the slowdown happens, it will start imperceptibly, with lower hours worked,
yes ... that is the number i'll be watching (and hourly wages) ... last month hours worked/week dropped.
The European Central Bank reduces benchmark refi rate to 0.75%, a record low, as the deposit rate goes to zero. Top central banker Mario Draghi explains the rationale.
[nelson voice points finger at Yerp] Ha ha!
Oh wait...
Outsider wrote:
MO' MONEY, MO' MONEY, MO' MONEY!
vtcodger wrote:
Advice is a tricky thing VTcodger. Wise men don't need it and fools won't heed it.
Hampton's housing only goes up yo! Actually I bet most, if not all, manage to set it up as in investment property and the interest and depreciation are just another "win/win" - kind of like paying 15% long term cap gains rate on their "income" from the hedge fund they are partners in...
black dog wrote :
Average Weekly Hours
The data series only covers the most recent recession, for which it was not a leading indicator.
Unfortunate headline of the Day:
"Romney's wife says woman being eyed for ticket"
The question is....How many women?
Romney's wife says woman being eyed for ticket - Yahoo! News
Hussman off suicide watch again?
10:01 AM June ISM Non-Manufacturing Index: 52.1 vs. 53.0 expected and 53.7 prior (>50 denotes expansion). Prices index fell to 48.9 from 49.8. Employment rose 52.3 to from 50.8. New orders fell to 53.3 from 55.5. [U.S. Economy] Comment!
I sort of think we are stumbling down the right path. There never has been much reason to put people into space. That was established by Skylab in the 1970s. We ignored the results and spent a fortune on manned experiments that could almost certainly have been performed better and cheaper with unmanned vehicles even if half of them failed. And, in fact, many of our most productive experiments have been unmanned -- Viking, Mars lander, etc.
So, I'm hoping that we will turn manned space exploration over to commercial efforts -- which will probably produce dismal results and kill no small number of people. In the meantime, perhaps NASA can focus on real science.
There will come a time for manned exploration of space. But that time looks to me to be many decades in the future.
Maybe I'm not getting the economics of Hamptons rentals. If you spend, oh let's say $120K on a three-month Hamptons rental, based on a certain percentage of your yearly bonus (Hamptons rental prices are strongly correlated with bonus money). How much can you possibly get back through sub-letting, as you plan to spend most of your weekends out there? You compete on price against hotels and other rentals, and I can't imagine you'd get back even half of that original $120K.
FTSE 100 -0.23%
CAC 40 -1.50%
DAX -1.08%
FTSE MIB -3.20%
IBEX 35 IDX -3.23%
Yay Kristina! Also, you've paid your loan down some ---it happens early at 2% you pony rider you.
Mike in Long Island wrote:
It's good to be a job creator, yo!
Ok - you're talking renting - I was referring to the rentiers.
I agree with you on the rental aspect - why spend $120k on a 3 month rental unless it's to let everyone know what a BSD you are.
Especially if you can only go there on weekends.
black dog wrote:
It matters what the "trend" is.
In 2006, FTCs were right around 300k, (often below it), all year. Continuing claims were in the 2.4 million zone.
By June of 2007, continuing claims were up to 2.5 million (and rising).
By October of 2007, they had moved up to the 330k range --
By December of 2007, 350k. --- continuing claims were up to 2.7 by this point
Note: The 2007 4th quarter GDP was positive -- and the nature of recession calls is that they aren't made until a year after the fact.
The FTC trend was one that only started to become a "trend" around October of 2007. By December, it appeared to be accellerating.
It is not the NUMBER that is important. It is the trend that projects forward.
In 2009, FTCs peaked above 600k from January to June. -- (continuing rose to about 6.5 million in mid 2009)
But, from July to December of 2009, the TREND was from well over 600k down to 500k, (and continuing claims dropped to 4.9 million by year end). The TREND was overwhelmingly positive, even though the total number of FTCs was massively high.
The error is in reading any single week skew below 15,000 as an indicator.
The error is in not understanding just how much week to week noise there actually is ... and not understanding even with FTCs as a leading indicator, you need 2-3 months of significant movement in one direction to call it a trend.
Since Week 1 of 2012, FTC high was 392k and low was 361k. And at least one week in every month of this year has been in the 370s or below. There simply isn't a trend.
But every time there is a weekly move of 8,000 (in either direction), suddenly everyone is acting like something significant has happened.