In the week ending Feb. 5, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 383,000, a decrease of 36,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 419,000. The 4-week moving average was 415,500, a decrease of 16,000 from the previous week's revised average of 431,500.
Ok, that's positive. But the last two weeks have seen the seasonally-adjusted and non-adjusted figures very close. This week? Uhhh....
The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 438,548 in the week ending Feb. 5, a decrease of 25,928 from the previous week. There were 507,634 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.
Well well.... more than 55,000 people were magically subtracted due to alleged seasonal factors.
Hmmmm....
Well, we got a few things here. First, we now have a clean understanding of the crap number in the employment report, as there's really no "there" there. Second, I don't believe the seasonally-adjusted numbers.
The market doesn't believe it either, judging from the futures reaction.
