Initial Jobless Claims Plunge 11,000 -- September 17, 2015

From ycharts:

US Initial Jobless Claims is at a current level of 264,000, a decrease of 11,000 or 4.00% from last week. This is a decrease of 52,000 or 16.46% from last year and is lower than the long term average of 360770.

Reuters reports:

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 264,000 for the week ended September 12, 2015. That was the lowest reading since the week ended July 18.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims holding at 275,000 last week.

The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 3,250 to 272,500 last week.

The number seems a bit fishy, but it is what it is. Futures are down slightly.  

Poll: will the Fed "raise the rate" today? Yes/no? Update: the rate was left unchanged!

Poll results:

• the Fed will raise rates: 33%
• the Fed will NOT raise rates: 67%

A pretty smart group of readers. I was neutral; had no idea, but leaned ever so slightly to "would not raise rates."

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Notes From New York

The Huffington Post reports:

The New York Times reported Wednesday night that Gabay is dead.

An aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was shot in the head before a Labor Day parade in Brooklyn. Carey Gabay, 43, first deputy counsel in the Empire State Development Corporation, was declared brain dead on Tuesday and had been in critical condition since getting caught in the crossfire of alleged gang violence on Sept. 7, hours before the start of the massive West Indian Day Parade. Gabay was struck by a single bullet. 

The son of Jamaican immigrants who grew up in Bronx public housing, Gabay got a law degree at Harvard and joined Cuomo's administration in 2011 as an assistant counsel in the governor's office before moving to the ESDC, a development agency.