Unadjusted Year Over Year: Labor Department Initial Jobless Claims Up 9.6%

Here's the scoop on the Labor Department's weekly initial jobs claims report:

• Associated Press Headline And Lead: "First-time jobless claims drop less than expected... The number of people claiming jobless benefits for the first time dropped less than expected last week, evidence that the labor market remains weak even as the economy is recovering."
• Labor Department News Release: click here. 
• Key Numbers: "The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 492,456 in the week ending Oct. 24, an increase of 32,026 from the previous week. There were 449,389 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008."
• My Spreadsheet (click Download 20091015yoy).

Here's my uneducated interpretation - No news here. Initial jobless claims were bad again this week and still 100K over the same point in time for 2002. Mid-october 2002 was the Internet Bubble crash's stock-market low and unemployment didn't start falling until Q2 2003 (see graph below). Seems to me that initial jobless claims indicate that unemployment is still rising and will continue to rise for some time. Based on the economy, the stock market is due for a correction, but I'm expecting it to rise on sentiment/psychological factors thru the end of the year. 

 
MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us