It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And initial and continuing claims are both down, while the trade deficit rose to a 16 month high and inflation remained in, "The Fed Hikes Rates," territory.

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits for the first time fell for a second week while the overall number of people on jobless relief rolls slid to the ​lowest level in a month, signaling a stable labor market that should give the Federal Reserve leeway to focus on containing inflation.

Meanwhile, the U.S. trade deficit in goods, which President Donald ‌Trump is trying to reduce through his aggressive use of tariffs on imported goods, was the widest in 16 months in July as exports fell for a third straight month and capital goods imports surged on the back of the artificial intelligence build-out. The wider goods trade gap last month puts trade on track to be a net drag on U.S. gross domestic product growth for a fourth straight quarter.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 203,000 for the week ended August ​22, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 208,000 claims for the latest week.

Claims are hovering in the lower end of their 189,000-230,000 range for this year, indicating ​that layoffs remain low even if hiring is soft. Despite a surprise drop in employment in July, the U.S. jobless rate ticked down again to 4.1%, a historically low ⁠level.

The number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, fell 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.778 million during the week ended August 15, the claims report showed. The ​continued claims data covered the survey week for the monthly nonfarm payrolls report for August.

………

Labor market stability, ​if sustained, gives the Fed headroom to keep its focus on containing inflation that has run above its 2% target for 65 straight months.

Thursday's data came as Fed policymakers and other global economic officials were gathering in ​Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the Kansas City Fed's annual economic symposium, where U.S. central bank Chairman Kevin Warsh will deliver a keynote address on Friday morning. Warsh, who so far in his young term has shied away from commenting specifically ‌on the state ⁠of the economy and direction of Fed policy, is under pressure to address a central issue: Is current inflation a problem or not, and what should be done about it?

A growing minority of his Fed colleagues are increasingly anxious about inflation, and three voting members of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee dissented last month with the decision to leave interest rates unchanged at 3.50% to 3.75%. The inflation measure the Fed uses to set its target held steady unexpectedly last month at 3.7%.

Not a clue as to what this all means.