• Jobless Claims
  • 3.169m vs 3000m forecast
• Continued Claims
  • 22.647m vs 19.905m forecast, 18.011 previously
• 10yr yields down 2.4bps at .685
• 2.5 MBS up 0.03 (1 tick) at 103.81 (103.26)

"Enough already!" said everyone to various labor market reports.  "We get it... unemployment is ridiculously high due to coronavirus lockdowns."  

It seems that markets are getting almost nothing by way of new information from the evolving labor market insanity.  Continued claims just outstripped their forecast by nearly 3 million jobs.  That means almost 3 million more people remain out of work compared to economists' expectations.  

While it's tempting to shrug off such a discrepancy as a byproduct of the huge numbers, remember: forecasters have done a generally admirable job of extrapolating available state-level data to produce shockingly accurate predictions about unemployment.  This big of a miss could be taken as an anecdote about things being a bit worse than the current consensus suggests.

I would say something like "perhaps this is why Treasuries are rallying a bit at the moment," but we have no accompanying move in stocks.  Also, bonds have been slowly improving since 6am of their own volition.  

Still, I can say that the data certainly isn't hurting the cause.  And it may result in some traders erring on the side of buying before selling in the first half of the day.