Thursday, March 2, 2017
After witnessing Initial Jobless Claims numbers hovering in the 250K-275K range, levels which illustrate a strong U.S. labor market, the last three Thursday morning reads have been 238K, 242K (last week, revised down 2000 claims) and today’s figure: 223K new jobless claims. You’d have to go way back to March 1973 (the Nixon administration, prior to the Watergate scandal seizing headlines) to find numbers that low.
Call it a new range, anyhow: 225K-250K, although this morning’s total was actually 2000 claims lower than the bottom end of that. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, however; these are obviously historically very strong numbers that will likely plateau before making a big swing in either direction. This is especially true before the Trump administration and the GOP-led Congress put together repatriation and infrastructure initiatives that promise to bring even more, and more high-quality, jobs to the domestic economy.
Continuing claims remained right around 2.06 million, where this figure has been for the past several weeks. Prior to that, continuing claims had actually dipped slightly below 2 million for a brief period. Though if new claims numbers stay this low, the longer-term metric is likely to follow over time.
Snapchat Gets Its IPO
Today is the first day that Snap Inc. (SNAP) shares will begin trading, in what is the most anticipated Initial Public Offering event of this short year so far. A social media network that allows messaging to slip into the ether, Snapchat has developed into a preferred mode of communication among younger generations of Americans.
Keeping in mind the massive success of Facebook was far from realized at the time of its IPO nearly 5 years ago, there will likely be some naysayers on Snap’s fortunes. Plenty of attention will be given to the company’s plans to grow beyond its current niche, which may keep a cap on upside gains in its inaugural trading day on the Nasdaq exchange. For more on Snap’s big day, click here.
Then again, with a stock market still performing like a red-hot engine — the Dow revved up another 303 points Wednesday and climbs another 26 points in today’s pre-market — perhaps the sky’s the limit for Snapchat investors. If so, this looks like extremely fortunate timing for the newly public company.
Mark Vickery
Senior Editor
Click here to follow this author>>
Image: Bigstock
Lowest Weekly Jobless Claims in 44 Years, SNAP Goes Public
Thursday, March 2, 2017
After witnessing Initial Jobless Claims numbers hovering in the 250K-275K range, levels which illustrate a strong U.S. labor market, the last three Thursday morning reads have been 238K, 242K (last week, revised down 2000 claims) and today’s figure: 223K new jobless claims. You’d have to go way back to March 1973 (the Nixon administration, prior to the Watergate scandal seizing headlines) to find numbers that low.
Call it a new range, anyhow: 225K-250K, although this morning’s total was actually 2000 claims lower than the bottom end of that. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, however; these are obviously historically very strong numbers that will likely plateau before making a big swing in either direction. This is especially true before the Trump administration and the GOP-led Congress put together repatriation and infrastructure initiatives that promise to bring even more, and more high-quality, jobs to the domestic economy.
Continuing claims remained right around 2.06 million, where this figure has been for the past several weeks. Prior to that, continuing claims had actually dipped slightly below 2 million for a brief period. Though if new claims numbers stay this low, the longer-term metric is likely to follow over time.
Snapchat Gets Its IPO
Today is the first day that Snap Inc. (SNAP) shares will begin trading, in what is the most anticipated Initial Public Offering event of this short year so far. A social media network that allows messaging to slip into the ether, Snapchat has developed into a preferred mode of communication among younger generations of Americans.
Keeping in mind the massive success of Facebook was far from realized at the time of its IPO nearly 5 years ago, there will likely be some naysayers on Snap’s fortunes. Plenty of attention will be given to the company’s plans to grow beyond its current niche, which may keep a cap on upside gains in its inaugural trading day on the Nasdaq exchange. For more on Snap’s big day, click here.
Then again, with a stock market still performing like a red-hot engine — the Dow revved up another 303 points Wednesday and climbs another 26 points in today’s pre-market — perhaps the sky’s the limit for Snapchat investors. If so, this looks like extremely fortunate timing for the newly public company.
Mark Vickery
Senior Editor
Click here to follow this author>>