Jobless Claims unexpectedly rise this week

The headline says it all. Analysts were expecting jobless claims to shrink this week and it unexpectedly rose 15,000 more jobs lost, to 576,000 jobs for the week. Continuing Claims also went higher to a total of 6.24 Million people are out of work. I don't know why they expect less job losses as I expect more to come. Last night my wife and I went to the famous North Beach area of San Francisco to see a friend open her first art show. We ate in the neighborhood and walked around. For the first time in 25 years, we saw many For Lease signs on buildings and office space. We saw eviction notices posted on businesses by the Sheriff. We also went to my old neighborhood where I lived before I was married, Union Street, and saw a number of new For Lease signs on empty shops. So the notion of less job losses while enticing to believe to increase our confidence level, is misleading. Things are not getting better for many small businesses. Restaurants are holding on with limited cash.

A friend of mine told me her beau, a senior executive specializing in IT, was let go from a well known hospital in San Francisco. No one is apparently safe from layoffs, even some execs. Things are tight and my best guess is that my prediction of a major stock market pullback is on schedule for this Fall, peaking by October Options expiration, the third Friday of October.

Hope I'm wrong and the market may stay disconnected from the reality of the economy, as it is pumped up by government money given to banks and insurance companies. But this disconnect is more troubling than the actual economy, as all it does is increase skepticism by the public of our financial systems. It's called manipulation. The stock market is just like the Casinos, it's a rigged game in favor of the House.