The Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose for the 7^th straight month, indicating that a recovery is underway, as does the Philadelphia Bank of the Federal Reserve’s survey of manufacturing hitting 16.7, the highest level since June, 2007.

Unemployment though, is not cooperating, with initial unemployment claims unchanged from last week, they are still 505,000, unemployed is still on a pace to increase.

Basically, if it is above 400K, it still sucks, and this applies to the 4 week moving average too, which fell to 514,000, down 6,500

The continuing claims numbers are better, down 39,000 to 5.61 million, but still pretty grim too.

I would note that the continuing claims number does not count people who have moved to extended benefits, and that jumped 119,000 to 4.16 million.

You do the math 39,000 on the up side, 119,000 on the down side, gives us 80,000 of ugly.

In any case, concerns about continued growth, which I think were driven by the lack of improvement in first time claims, has people fleeing to safety again, with yields on 3-month Treasury Bill maturing in January going negative for the first time since December of last year, because people are willing to pay to keep their money safe for the next month or so..

Additionally, we have the Bank of Japan sending out signals that it will be keeping rates low, because it is concerned about deflation.

These concerns have driven oil down and the dollar and yen up.