Positive News with Initial Jobless Claims

There was a bit of good economic data that crossed the wires this morning which was the initial jobless claims ticking down for a second straight week.  The decline was attributed to low inventories in the auto sector and the fact that summer shutdown have either been pushed back, reduced, or postponed all together.

Consensus from Econoday

• Initial jobless claims fell 14,000 in the June 30 week to 374,000 which was well under Econoday expectations for 386,000. In a small offset, the prior week was revised 2,000 higher to 388,000 which however is still 4,000 lower than the prior week. The four-week average, at 385,750, was down slightly for a second straight week. Still, the average's trend versus a month-ago was not favorable and showed a 5,000 to 10,000 increase. Improvement for continuing claims, like that for initial claims, has stalled. Continuing claims in data for the June 23 week rose 4,000 to 3.306 million with the four-week average down 3,000 to 3.304 million.

The market obviously did not react positively to the news this morning as we opened down and have stayed down all day today.  Maybe it was the Bowles comment that we are indeed heading off the fiscal cliff.