Jobless Claims Holds Steady at 370,000; Previous Week Revised Upward; Total Number Rises

Remember: the magic number is 400,000
Leading Economic Indicators Goes Negative For First Time Since September

The previous week was revised up from 367 to 370-thousand.

From Reuters:

Not good when the number holds steady but it could be worse. How did others see it?
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 365,000 last week. The four-week moving average for new claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends, fell 4,750 to 375,000.

The data comes on the heels of three straight months of slowing employment gains. Companies added 115,000 new jobs to their payrolls in April, the fewest in six months.


The number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid rose 18,000 to 3.27 million in the week ended May 5.

WOW, WOW, WOW -- Leading Economic Indicators went negative in April after it had gone positive in March. Market reacting in a very negative way the drop in LEI. The 30-second soundbite says the drop in LEI is due to a) persistent jobless rates; and, b) mortgage and housing problem. I don't know about you, but everything is pointing to a difficulty decoupling risk of American recession from the recession in half of the entire EU. It's going to be a very, very long, hard summer for investors. 

The economy is "still struggling to gain momentum," though long-term trends remain expansionary, the Conference Board said Thursday as it reported that its index of leading economic indicators fell 0.1% in April, the first decline since September.