Initial Jobless Claims 448,000 week ending 4/24/10 and the crowd goes wild!

U.S. Department of Labor:
In the week ending April 24, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 448,000, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 459,000 (originally reported as 456,000).

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 17 was 4,645,000, a decrease of 18,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 4,663,000 (originally reported as 4,646,000).

The media headlines will pounce on the "decrease" and the Quant fund algorithmic traders will once again move the equity market higher on abysmal volume. 

Clearly the Department of Labor remains challenged with basic addition and subtraction however Wall Street remains indifferent to the plight of the unemployed. Run the market up on a decrease in claims solely due to the prior week's upward revisions. 

A decrease of 18,000 in continuing claims makes for great headlines as it would have produced a wimpy 1,000 decrease headline without the hefty 17,000  upward revision.

The Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) figure clocked in at 5,200,473 for the week ending 4/10/10. This figure is down 146,641 from the prior week. The question remains, is the drop due to gaining employment, losing eligibility or a combination? For the same period in 2009, the EUC figure stood at 2,286,186. We have come a long way baby; government dumping mass quantities of debt on our kids and grandkids while EUC claims climb 2.9 million over a 12 month period.

Just remember, this is a jobless recovery as pronounced on CNBC. 5.2 million people collecting Emergency Unemployment Compensation is roughly equivalent to the entire population of Colorado, but hey, we have 49 other states.