Initial Claims update

11 Jan 2019

No MA cross included here, just an update on current Initial claims direction. We're still ticking upward more, haven't yet received confirmation, but starting to look like we'll get some momentum in the unemployment rate. Once that gets going, it's game over for the economy. We're getting more and more updates of corporate layoffs recently, but wait on data to confirm.

FWIW, initial claims is a great series to watch, and is better than the straight unemployment rate because it's...

• Higher frequency
  
• Not affected by the volume of people out of the workforce
  
• Not affected by average hourly work week differences from month to month