Economics Update

It's jobless Thursday initial claims rose by 37,000 to a 464,000 (seasonally adjusted), worse than forecast, with the less noisy 4 week moving average rising by 1,250 to 456,000, though continuing claims fell by 223,000 to 4.49 million.

In real estate, the inventory of homes for sales has risen year over year, and existing home sales fell in June.

They will fall in July as well, since we are still seeing the tailing off of closings from contracts that were signed before the tax credit expired.

About the only thing that shows any hope in the housing market is that mortgage rates continue to fall, though they really running up against the zero bound.