Mix Signals in the Economy Today

Although we got mixed signals from the economic reports that came out today, it was mostly positive. At the very least, it was confirming an upward trend in our economy, which was good news. We have yet to see how the stock market will react to this news.

Jobless claims were lower at 352,000. That is the lowest in nearly four years. There are seasonal considerations since we just got off the holiday shopping season. Even so, the number is unusually low.

In the context of the positive news we have been seeing over the past few months, we can be confident that this is not a fluke. That should give investors some more confidence that we will actually see some growth in the stock market this year. The S&P 500 ended the year flat last year. There would need to be some major bad news coming out of Europe or a major downturn in China to not see the S&P gain this year.

This was on top of positive earnings news from Bank of America, which was a bit of a surprise. We are still waiting on announcements from Google and Intel as well.