In the week ended March 28, initial claims rose by 12 000 from an upwardly revised 657 000 to 669 000. This is above the consensus estimate of 650 000 and a new cyclical high. Continuing claims, which are reported with a one week lag, rose from an upwardly amended 5 567 000 to 5 728 000, while only a slight increase was expected. The sharp rise in continuing claims raises fears that today’s payrolls report will again be very weak and a downward surprise is not excluded.
In February, factory orders came out somewhat higher than expected, rising by 1.8% M/M, while the consensus was looking for an outcome of 1.5% M/M. The previous figure was however sharply downwardly revised from -1.9% M/M to -3.5% M/M. Looking at the details, durables rose by 3.5% M/M, while non-durables increased by 0.3% M/M. This is the first increase in factory orders after six consecutive (sharp) declines, but most of the rebound was due to defence orders, as was already illustrated by the durables.
