Lowest weekly jobless claims in 4.5 years – or is it ??

This post is not meant to be political, but a political undertone cannot be avoided.  The headlines in the LA Times Business section online proclaimed “New jobless claims fall 30,000” to 4.5 year low at 339,000. As the lowest weekly jobless claims news broke out, the S&P Futures spiked and stayed higher even after the market opened. This number was ridiculously low and caught everyone by surprise (or shock). Skeptics were already screaming foul after last week’s unemployment rate which fell to 7.8%, again a 4.5 year high. Political pundits, including ex-GE boss Jack Welch wasted no time blasting the Obama administration for fudging the numbers. (See news below – Only Fox News found the news story “strange” but everyone else including NY Times and Reuters simply broadcast the news.)

But the jobless claims were hit out of the park – this was an outlier. As the headlines percolated through the markets over the next few hours, we learnt that “A BIG STATE HAD NOT REPORTED ITS NUMBERS”. Of course, we must not forget that the Biden-Ryan VP debate was last night as well. Over the rest of the day, the news that a big state had not reported its numbers started coming through and the markets gave up all its gains for the day and ended up flat. But this news came in very silently, no brouhaha, nothing. The story got its maximum coverage in the morning when the phenomenal number was released. For the real story, watch this video on CNBC (Note: The S&P was up 10 points when this story broke )

Does anyone else think this is the most ridiculous story you’ve heard in a long time ? Do we really need these kinds of shenanigans ? Regardless of any political leanings, this is just nuts !