The monthly jobs report is considered important because it is so closely watched by so many, and it moves the markets. It is often headlined with the unemployment rate (for July, 4.9%) and the number of new jobs created or lost (for July, +255,000). Astute investors pay more attention to the weekly initial-jobless-claims number (which was released Thursday and came in at 269,000). In this corner’s opinion, this number can tell you much more about the health of the economy than the others, and it continues to be a positive story.

Let us start by looking at a historical chart of initial jobless claims.… Please click here or the title below to read more.