Initial claims for unemployment drop to lowest levels of pandemic–I’m worried that stocks aren’t happier

Initial claims for unemployment drop to lowest levels of pandemic–I’m worried that stocks aren’t happier

This morning, March 25, the Labor Department reported that new claims for unemployment in regular state programs fell to 684,000 last week. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected 735,000 new claims. In the previous week workers filed 781,000 new claims. This is good news. The drop of 97,000 is another sign that the U.S. economy is marching into a post-vaccine recovery. (We’ve still got a long, long way to go: The total number of claims for all types of unemployment benefits was 18.95 million for the week ended March 6.) So shouldn’t stocks have moved up more strongly, especially after yesterday’s sell off?