It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I is confuzzled We have a busy Thursday, first with initial unemployment claims falling to a 57 year low and continuing claims fell to a 2 year low.

This makes no sense at all to me, though being recently unemployed may effect my perception of all of this: (Or maybe the Trump administration is just falsifying the data ) 

Given the announcements of large layoffs, this makes no sense to me.

Applications for US unemployment benefits plunged to the lowest level in decades, a sign that job-cut announcements have not yet meaningfully translated into layoffs.

Initial claims fell by 26,000 to 189,000 in the week ended April 25. according to Labor Department data released Thursday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 212,000 applications.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, dropped to 1.79 million in the previous week, the lowest in two years.

Meanwhile, it appears that we have good GDP numbers, but that makes sense when you consider that this statistic includes all of the money being set on fire by the AI bubble.

US economic growth accelerated at the start of the year, bolstered by a massive AI-driven upswing in business investment.

Inflation-adjusted gross domestic product increased an annualized 2% in the first quarter after the longest-ever federal government shutdown limited growth in the closing months of 2025, according to an initial estimate issued Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Consumer spending, which comprises about two-thirds of economic activity, increased at a better-than-expected 1.6% rate, driven by demand for services including healthcare and financial services. Business outlays on equipment and structures advanced 10.4%, the fastest pace in almost three years and supported by rapid investment in artificial intelligence.

Finally, inflation seems to be heating up in a big way.

The PCE price index, which the Fed favors for its inflation yardstick, spiked by 0.66% in March from February (+8.3% annualized), the worst spike since mid-2022 at the peak of the inflation surge.

Inflation has been accelerating since mid-2025. In each of the three months of December, January, and February – so before the war and before the energy price spike – the PCE price index had already surged by 4% to 4.6% annualized (black circle in the chart). The March spike is on top of that acceleration (blue line). And it was energy, but not just energy.

Year-over-year, the PCE price index jumped by 3.5%, the worst since May 2023 (red line). The Fed’s target for the year-over-year measure is 2.0%, and PCE inflation has been moving away from it relentlessly for the past 10 months, and the energy price spike came on top of it.

Whatever is going on, it ain't good.