It’s jobless Thursday, and the new numbers suck wet farts from dead pigeons, specifically, they are up 12% over the past 2 weeks,to 496,000, up 22,000, and well over the consensus estimate 460,000.

Ouch.

Meanwhile, both the The 4-week moving average and the continuing claims rose by 6K, to 473,750 and 4.617 million.

Note however, that he Snowpocalypse may have had something to do with this.

Note also that that the durable goods orders number sucked too, it was up only because of aircraft orders, and as the picture on the right shows, there really is no increase at all once you take out spending on military items going back a very long time.

Meanwhile, in Japan, their consumer prices fell by 1.3% year over year, which is triggering a shouting match between the Finance Ministry, who want QE, and the Bank of Japan, who are still inflation hawks.

Meanwhile in currency, the dollar rose, largely on concerns about Greece and Euro Zone.

And yes, I know, I need to post something about the Greek problem, but it’s sprawling, and I’m still trying to make a synthesis.

In energy, the crappy jobs numbers drove oil down.