Jobless Claims

Magic number: 400,000

Bloomberg link.

• Weekly jobless claims: down 2,000 to 386,000  -- highest number since January, 2012
• (wow, consensus: 370,000; CNBC said 367,000) -- incredible!)
• Continuing claims: 3.3 million; increased by 26,000
• Four-week moving average which they say is better gauge: increase of 5,000 to 374,750
• Last week revised to 388,000 (last week the number reported was 380,000)

Another "not good" report. Had last week's number not been revised upward, today's number would have been an increase of 6,000 when analysts forecast a drop of 13,000.

No Easter excuse; no "bad weather" excuse; no "extenuating factors" excuse in early reports but by the end of the day talking heads will have something. Maybe.

And to think, "they" killed Keystone XL. Slow-rolling domestic oil and gas industry; killing the coal industry; EPA asking US Army Corps of Engineers to thoroughly study job-creating programs before approving. Wind industry lost 10,000 jobs. Solar companies declaring bankruptcy; First Solar cuts 30 percent of work force; Europe not economically viable for solar.

I can't wait to see the AP spin on this data. CNBC minced no words on this report. Here is Yahoo/Reuters comment:

"The number suggests that improvement is slowing down," said Subodh Kumar, chief investment strategist at Subodh Kumar & Associates in Toronto.

Improvement is slowing down? Okay.