Friday, July 5, 2013

The unemployment rate is dropping!!

The unemployment rate is dropping!!

The first 3 days of this week the stock market has seen modest movements in the indices.  Trading volume is lighter than normal as many investors have taken the entire week off. In addition to the markets being closed on Thursday for the July 4th holiday, there was not a lot of economic data released this week for the traders that stuck around to trade on.

The most significant report for the holiday week will be released on Friday at 8:30AM.  Friday’s release of the national unemployment rate is always a significant report however analysts are not expecting any major changes in the employment situation.  The expectation for May’s report is that there was an addition of 175,000 non-farm jobs.  The unemployment rates is expected to remain the same at 7.5%.  The ADP report released on Wednesday showed significant month-to-month improvement in the job sector with an estimated increase in private payrolls of 188,000 for June.

First time jobless claims are trending lower but only very gradually. Initial claims for the week of June 29th fell 5,000 to 343,000 which is just below analyst expectations of 345,000. The 4-week moving average is also down slightly to 345,500 which is several thousand below where were a month ago.

Outside of the lack of significant economic data this week, the biggest news is that our elected officials fighting again.  The Republicans are upset about the Obama administration’s decision to delay a major portion of the implementation of the Health Care Reform Act until 2015. 

The battle that is heating up in Congress is that the Republicans are stating that the President does not have the authority to delay implementation of a law passed by Congress.  The irony is that the Republicans never wanted the law to begin with and now they are upset because it is being delayed without what they feel is proper authority.  For people like me just sitting on the sidelines watching this battle unfold I can’t help but think that our elected officials will argue about anything and everything.

Yesterday being Independence Day makes me wonder if this behavior is what our founding fathers had in mind for how our government should work?

JJ Mack
916-517-1800
jj.mack@apmortgage.com
www.apmcroseville.com

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