New Unemployment Benefit Applications for last week? I thought "380,000," Instead, the number was 402,000 !!

In reporting this news, The Wall Street Journal has something wrong.

Here is their commentary (in part):

Initial jobless claims climbed by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 402,000 in the week ended Nov. 26, the highest level in more than a month, the Labor Department said Thursday.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast claims would fall by 3,000 to 390,000.

Here is my problem with the above: if the jobless mark rose by 6,000 to 402,000, the starting point for this article must have been 396,000, right? But, if experts thought the total would decline by 3,000 to 390,000 . . . . . well, that would give us a stating point of 393,000. And the "402,000" will be revised upward, probably by a 2,000 to 4,000 count. It is always revised upward sometime after the Thursday declaration. Before next Thursday, that 402,000 mark will be 404,000 or more.

Listening to the news, yesterday, was a disgusting proposition for this editor. The news services, including Fox, were touting the end of the recession. Good times were just around the corner. The commentary was exactly that of three weeks ago, Thursday, just after a Wednesday Stock Market 400 point increase. Shepard Smith, the bourbon drinking newscaster on Fox PM, went on and on about the good news. All this was followed by three weeks of demoralizing financial news. After the giddiness of yesterdays appraisals, what with the stock market increase of 490 points this time, the "402,000" mark must have come as a gross disappointment for the those who are anxious to see a serious beginning to financial recovery.

Will the next three weeks be a repeat of the past three? I don't know, but I am confident that the Market is cyclical and we are months away from a substantial decrease in unemployed benefit numbers. The past month evidences my point.

Even I was fooled. My prediction of 380,000 was based on three consecutive weeks of sub-400,000 numbers and a demonstrable "trend" downward. There was the news, released yesterday, of 260,000 private sector jobs created and 110,000 small business jobs added to the economy. It all sounded good. But, late in the day, yesterday, there was some negative news about the economy that I chose to ignore. Shame on me. Never again.