Non-Seasonally-Adjusted Initial Jobless Claims Crash To 53-Year-Lows

When even Obama’s former top economist warns that the unemployment picture will turn hellish as the Fed scrambles to crush inflation, markets are predictably looking for early warnings of this starting to happen. But they won’t get it in today’s initial jobless claims data, which not only did not come in weaker than expected, coming solidly above expectations but the unadjusted claims print was an absolute shocker, sliding from 172K to just 156K, the lowest on record!

Indeed, judging by the data, it appears the employment scare from Q2 is over as the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first fell to just 213k last week and continuing claims were flat at 1.403MM…

Texas and California saw the biggest drop initial claims while Massachusetts and Indiana saw the biggest weekly rise…

Finally, and even more shocking for many – amid the record low consumer sentiment, widespread layoffs, and now crashing stocks – is that non-seaonally-adjusted jobless claims plunged last week to the lowest since 1969!

This is not good news for bulls hoping for Powell to pivot as this suggests the labor market has never been tighter?…