Archive Category: Andrew Zatlin's Superforecast Trader Archive

Jobless claims were moving along at a steady clip until this May, when weekly claims started ticking up by 10-20% on average. And this higher rate of jobless claims stuck all the way through June, too. Investors were beginning to wonder whether this might be a lasting trend — one that could lead to slowdown or even recession.

Welcome back for your Thursday edition of Superforecast Trader. The weekly jobless claims numbers are in, and, just as I expected, they came in relatively close to the previous week’s print. Jobless claims for the week preceding the Fourth of July holiday were revised down to 232,000.

For more than a month now, jobless claims have been surging higher. Which leads us to an important question — is this just a temporary “bubble” in unemployment due to things like DOGE cuts? Or is this a larger trend shift that could point to a slowdown in the economy? I’ll share my take in today’s video update, then Matt Clark will help you flesh out the bigger picture below:

Hello, it’s Matt Clark here. Another short week is upon us as the Fourth of July holiday begins on Friday. It means another long weekend for markets as all major exchanges will close at 1 p.m. on Thursday and remain closed until Monday morning. Additionally, Andrew is currently at West Point, taking his son Ari to his first year at the United States Military Academy. We certainly wish Ari all the best as he embarks on this new journey, and Andrew will return next Tuesday.

Ever since DOGE laid off thousands of workers earlier this year, Wall Street has been waiting for unemployment claims to start ticking up. But as I’ve explained time and time again, the vast majority of these employees were given severance packages — effectively extending their employment out another 90 days, through the end of May. Well, May is over. And as of last week, we’ve finally started to see layoffs tick up.