Tuesday, April 3, 2012

John Hussman Notices Troubling Upward Revisions to Initial Claims Data

And remarks how few others have noticed:

"[W]e've been watching the new unemployment claims data for some time. Almost without fail, when a new number is released, the new claims figure for the previous week is revised upward by about 3000 or so. Last week, we saw an unusual revision in new claims data, not just for the previous week, but in months of prior releases, with upward revisions averaging about 10,000 in the most recent reports (e.g. the Feb 25 figure was revised from 354,000 to 373,000). ... Given that so much investor enthusiasm has focused on the new claims figures, it's interesting that the large and generally upward revisions in months of prior data seemed to go virtually unnoticed."

Read his complete remarks here.