Weekly initial jobless claims were down by 1,000, lowering the four-week moving average to 344,500, decreasing the prior week's revised average of 347,750 by 3,250. These are seasonally adjusted data. The raw data were actually down 190,318 from the previous week. The reason for such a wide gap is principally the adjustment for holiday season retail workers. It's good to look at unadjusted data because those are real people. (I don't ever recall meeting a seasonally adjusted person, although San Diego 's weather might aid in that process.)

Confounding the experts again, housing starts were up once more. It's expected that housing will run out of steam, but the demographics and interest rates are just too strong a pair of factors to underestimate. Speaking of estimation, this data series has a habit of being revised upward as well. Don't worry, experts, you can get jobs forecasting New England weather.

A Federal Reserve report indicates that total household wealth has reached levels not seen since the peak of the stock markets in the Spring of 2000. That is, increases in the value of real estate and stocks have finally made up for the stock losses, including the NASDAQ dropping from 5200 to 1500. That index is now in the 2100 range, and these data may show that many households avoided at least some of that precipitous drop. This is yet another reminder of the importance of looking at the total context and realizing that most people have portfolios, some of them planned, some of them not. Barring a sudden drop in either stocks or real estate, this is an underreported and very positive turning point for the economy.