{"id":170,"date":"2009-06-18T09:47:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-18T13:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intuitiveinvestor.com\/web\/?p=170"},"modified":"2018-08-23T09:45:03","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T13:45:03","slug":"little-trick-to-evaluate-sea-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/2009\/06\/18\/little-trick-to-evaluate-sea-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Little trick to evaluate sea change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">OK, first of all. Before reading this post, I have to tell you that the post immediately below on the details of regulatory overhaul is more important, so read that one first, then come back here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Jobless claims data came out today and they were up very modestly, by 3,000. So the number of unemployed increased again. This was completely expected. However, claims lasting more than one week declined by their largest amount since November 2001. This big fall snapped 21 weeks in a row of increases. Yet, this is not the fascinating thing and not the point of the blog post. The point is a little trick that helps us to evaluate when big change is afoot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Several months ago jobless claims data was the lead story in the Wall Street Journal and other business publications. What were today&#8217;s headlines as of 7:53am MDT?<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Microsoft, Google in App Clash<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Eddie Bauer Plots Its Next Ascent<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Goodwin to Forgo Part of Pension<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Surgeon Was Paid by <span id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_0\" class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">Medtronic<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Credit Woes Ease at Discover<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Fifth Third Boosts Capital Levels<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">FedEx Offers Hope Amid Grim Results<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Banks Begin Exodus From TARP<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Morgan, <span id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_1\" class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">Deutsche<\/span> Bank to Run <span id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_2\" class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">AIA<\/span> <span id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_3\" class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">IPO<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Tepid Response to Regions Swap<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Barbarians in Bankruptcy Court<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">WebMD<\/span>, <span id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_5\" class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">HLTH<\/span> in All-Stock Deal<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">Smucker<\/span> Profit More Than Doubles<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Pier 1 Imports Reports Profit<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">Nomura<\/span> Taps Tokyo Banker for U.S.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">Cantillon<\/span> to Close Hedge Funds<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Electricity Industry to Scan Grid for Spies<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Winnebago Swings to Loss<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">UAL<\/span> Says Traffic is Down<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Intel Revamps Brands, Drops <span id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_10\" class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">Centrino<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Watson Strikes Deal with Arrow<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Boeing Scores Jet Order<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">OK, so where in the heck is the jobless claims data story? It is well below the headlines list I quoted above, on the <span id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_11\" class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">right side<\/span> under the &#8220;Economy&#8221; section. In fact, it&#8217;s not even the first story listed, but the second. It is entitled, &#8220;Jobless Claims Rise Slightly.&#8221; The trick my loyal readers is to read business news everyday so that you can track story arcs. It takes me about 15 minutes a day to peruse the <span id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_12\" class=\"blsp-spelling-error\">WSJ&#8217;s<\/span> headlines for pertinent news. By reading it daily I can get a gauge for how the importance of stories changes over time. You see the offices of the Wall Street Journal serve as a nexus point for the world&#8217;s business news. They have their fingers on the pulse of business and the economy. Their editors publish the stories they feel readers are most interested in. So what does it mean when the jobless data goes from overwhelmingly the lead story to barely mentioned at all? You tell me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Jason<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OK, first of all. Before reading this post, I have to tell you that the post immediately below on the details of regulatory overhaul is more important, so read that one first, then come back here. Jobless claims data came out today and they were up very modestly, by 3,000. So the number of unemployed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}