Jobless Claims up, down or flat. Take a Look.

Initial Jobless Claims
– 359,000 for week ended March 24, seasonally adjusted

– Down 5,000 from previous week’s revised 364,000 (was 348k)

– 4-week moving average was 365,000, down 3,500 from previous week

– New Claims (not Seasonally Adjusted) were 319,349

– New Claims a year ago were 401,000 for the same week.

While the jobs market has improved in the last year we are still just barely above the level of jobs growth needed to keep pace with increasing population. Unless we can substantially increase jobs, GDP and the revenue associated therewith our fiscal situation will become a nightmare. $5.9 trillion in Treasury debt matures in the next 5 years. In addition, we will likely take on at least $5 trillion in new deficit in those same 5 years. 61.5% of the net increase in Treasury debt last year was acquired by the Fed. This indicates lack of sufficient market to not monetize this debt.

More comments and charts by Bespoke.

GDP
– Final 4Q2011 GDP (Seasonally Adjusted annualized) was +3.0% the same as the previous estimate.

– GDP Price Deflator (Seasonally Adjusted annualized) was +0.9%. This is a measure of inflation weighted by each components percentage of GDP.

Corporate Profits
– Profits for 4Q2011 were down slightly from the previous quarter sliding from $1.502 trillion annualized to $1.494 trillion annualized.

– Year/Year profits were +11.7%.

For markets, this is “old news” because attention will soon turn to profits (and GDP) for 1Q2012.