Initial unemployment claims fell to below 300,000, 298000, beating expectations, though the holidays have a lot of noise in there.
More significantly, 3rd quarter GDP was revised upward by a large amount:
The U.S. economy grew faster than initially estimated in the third quarter but weak demand and a pile-up in business inventories buoyed the case for the Federal Reserve to keep up its bond-buying stimulus for now.
Gross domestic product grew at a 3.6 percent annual rate instead of the 2.8 percent pace reported a month ago, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.
It was the biggest gain since the first quarter of 2012, but inventories accounted for almost half of the increase in growth.
“The strong third-quarter growth pace masks the more subdued tone in domestic activity, and as the bloated level of inventory is worked off, we are likely to see a much softer performance in growth in the fourth quarter,” said Millan Mulraine, senior economist at TD Securities in New York.
So, what happened was that more stuff was made, but it just filled up warehouse shelves.
The holiday shopping season could be make or break for the economy.