Hold on to your hats, kiddies. The crack editorial staff at the AP has come up with the most astonishing headline of the decade:
Jobless claims jump unexpectedly to 16-year high
They’re right. Financial crisis, credit crunch, homebuying down, construction down, Circuit City going into Chapter 11, auto dealers going out of business—who would have thought that the number of people registering for unemployment benefits would go up?
New claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, providing more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market expected to get even worse next year.
The government said new applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 from a downwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week. That’s much higher than Wall Street economists’ expectations of 505,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.
I see that they changed the headline to one much less, well, stupid.
Stocks point lower after jobless claims jump
Investors list of worries is growing following a government report that weekly unemployment claims have unexpectedly increased.Stock futures contracts have wavered Thursday as investors worry about the fate of Detroit’s big automakers and juggle broader fears about the struggling economy. But a jump in new claims for unemployment benefits to a 16-year high has added to investors unease.
The Labor Department’s report has reported that new applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 last week. Thomson Reuters says analysts expected 505,000.
But this is bad. Get ready for Dow 7,000. Oil’s down around $50 a barrel, too (which is not bad for consumers). Gas is down to $1.62 in the Richmond area.