STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 23 April 2015

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday, 23 April 2015[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 22 April 2015

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 22 April 2015
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Dow Jones 18,038.27 +88.68 (0.49%)
S&P 500 2,107.96 +10.67 (0.51%)
Nasdaq 5,035.17 +21.07 (0.42%)


[font color=red]10 Year 1.98% +0.08 (4.21%)
30 Year 2.66% +0.09 (3.50%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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(click on link for latest updates)
Market Updates
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.
09/08/14 Matthew Martoma, convicted SAC trader, sentenced to 9 years in prison plus forfeiture of $9.3 million, including home and bank accounts







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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]

[Tansy_Gold]

1. Without hope . . .

. . . it's all over.

Major computer problems the past several days, have switched to Firefox, still getting used to it. Sorry for any glitches that occur in the process.

[Warpy]

2. Once you get used to having your food dish moved

you are going to love Firefox. I find it more intuitive than Chrome and just about anything is better than Internet Exploder.

One great setting deletes all the cookies you've picked up when you close the window. It helps keep things tidy and running smoothly.

[DemReadingDU]

3. another Firefox user

much better than IE

[Fuddnik]

6. I've used Firefox forever, but starting to have some major problems with it crashing.

It tends to lock up and crash then pop back up on mainly newspaper sites.

[Demeter]

4. Hope is a fragile thing, in Spring. It snowed wildly, briefly today

and while the snow immediately melted away, the fruit trees are definitely cracking open the flower buds. And there's supposed to be two nights of frost. I am afraid I'll go another year without setting any fruit.

Which loss would be the frosting on the cake, this Spring.

[Demeter]

5. Volcker calls for U.S. financial regulation shakeup

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/20/us-financial-regulations-volcker-idUSKBN0NB1ZU20150420

The U.S. financial regulatory system is outdated and riddled with loopholes, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said on Monday as he offered an overhaul plan to make watchdogs more effective.

The rise of the shadow banking sector - companies that provide credit but are not regulated as banks - demonstrates the urgency of regulatory reform, which failed to take root after the 2007-09 financial crisis, he said.

"The underlying problem is the growth of the non-bank part of the system," Volcker told Reuters.

"It's bad enough having all this duplication and inefficiency when everything was concentrated in the banks, but now the nonbanks are more important in credit creation than the banks," he said in an interview after a news conference.

Volcker, 87, is an influential central banking veteran who lent his name to a central provision in the 2010 Dodd-Frank law to rein in Wall Street. The measure prohibits banks from speculating with their own money, or proprietary trading.

The oversight of banks should be concentrated in one agency, the Prudential Supervisory Authority, rather than in the three bodies that presently share the task, Volcker said. Under the plan, the Federal Reserve would maintain authority for rule making, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp would still be responsible for winding down banks in trouble. But the third regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, would be eliminated. Volcker also said that the top U.S. risk council - a body that groups the major watchdogs and is often criticized as unwieldy - should be streamlined and hand over some of its tasks to a more nimble group. The Treasury Secretary would continue to chair the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) under the Volcker plan, but would no longer have a vote on it, to avoid the appearance of subjecting it to political expediency. The council would set up a smaller group, the Systemic Issues Committee, which would determine which companies or activities should be subject to regulation, even if they were outside the mandate of the existing watchdogs. The report also proposed to merge the two main market regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

[Demeter]

7. Ben Bernanke’s top excuse for working at a hedge fund actually makes it worse

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/17/8444131/ben-bernanke-citadel

After cooling his feet for a number of months at the Brookings Institution, former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke is going to cash in by working at the hedge fund Citadel. But rest assured, he told the New York Times's Andrew Ross Sorkin and Alexandra Stevenson, Citadel isn't regulated by the Fed — though Federal Reserve policy decisions certainly impact their business — and he "won’t be doing lobbying of any sort."

In a world where lobbying functions as a sort of dirty word, that's meant to make you feel better about the situation. But it shouldn't. The truth of the matter is that lobbying and related advocacy work are more straightforward, and even honorable, ways to cash in than what Bernanke is doing.

A person who's been working in the politics and policy world and who wants to enhance his salary by working for a for-profit business can lobby on behalf of a for-profit business whose policy agenda he or she believes in, and then everyone knows what he or she is doing, and why. The truly threatening revolving door is the one Bernanke just stepped through, where a distinguished public servant moves into a high-paying private-sector job in which his actual scope of responsibilities is completely mysterious....Ben Bernanke's mystery job is problematic. The great thing about lobbying and advocacy work is that people know what it is and what it looks like. The terrible thing about Bernanke's job at Citadel — and similar moves in which former government officials move on to ill-defined jobs at financial services companies — is that nobody knows what the job actually is....In part, surely, Bernanke is serving as a celebrity rainmaker. The hedge fund industry is in large part a sales industry — it's at least as much about ripping off the clients as anything else — and having a former Fed chair on staff helps with sales. In part, he'll be an adviser on strategic moves. And why not? He's a smart guy.

But the line here between "smart guy offers smart advice" and "former Fed chair offers inside information" seems awfully thin. There have been instances of clearly illegal leaks of inside info from the Fed to private business, but there's also a large gray area here. Bernanke presumably has better insight into how the Fed thinks and works than the average person does. He also presumably knows lots of people who still work there and can keep in touch and stay abreast of their thinking. He has personal knowledge of the global community of central bankers and bank regulators and can provide insight into their notions. When Bernanke offers these kind of insights to the public on his blog, he performs a public service. When he offers a higher-end version of these insights to his employer, a deeply interested party, he skews the playing field...having large numbers of former officials move into ill-defined finance roles (think not just Bernanke, but Peter Orszag at Citigroup, Tim Geithner at a private equity firm, and Larry Summers at D.E. Shaw) raises the suspicion that there's just a cozy implicit arrangement here. Run the country in a way that's friendly to the interests of the financial sector writ large, and someone will set you up with a nice no-show job to pad out your retirement...


THAT'S MODERN ETHICS FOR YOU...IF THE AUDIENCE CAN'T FIGURE OUT THE FIDDLE, IT'S NOT ILLEGAL

[mother earth]

16. Yeah, we are being screwed and absolutely none of it is done illegally, EXCEPT for when it is,

which makes us all realize we are being screwed from every direction.

Never conflicts of interest, never consequences, tis good to be king.

[Demeter]

8. Finally: List of 80 People With as Much Money as 1/2 of Humanity

http://realitieswatch.com/finally-list-of-80-people-with-as-much-money-as-12-of-humanity/

RANK NAME 2014 WEALTH (BILLIONS) COUNTRY SELF-MADE? SECTOR

1 Bill Gates $76 USA ✓ Tech
2 Carlos Slim Helu $72 Mexico ✓ Telecom
3 Amancio Ortega $64 Spain ✓ Retail
4 Warren Buffett $58 USA ✓ Finance
5 Larry Ellison $48 USA ✓ Tech
6 Charles Koch $40 USA Diversified
7 David Koch $40 USA Diversified
8 Sheldon Adelson $38 USA ✓ Entertainment
9 Christy Walton $37 USA Retail
10 Jim Walton $35 USA Retail
11 Liliane Bettencourt $35 France Product
12 Stefan Persson $34 Sweden Retail
13 Alice Walton $34 USA Retail
14 S. Robson Walton $34 USA Retail
15 Bernard Arnault $34 France Luxury
16 Michael Bloomberg $33 USA ✓ Finance
17 Larry Page $32 USA ✓ Tech
18 Jeff Bezos $32 USA ✓ Retail
19 Sergey Brin $32 USA ✓ Tech
20 Li Ka-shing $31 Hong Kong ✓ Diversified
21 Mark Zuckerberg $29 USA ✓ Tech
22 Michele Ferrero $27 Italy Food
23 Aliko Dangote $25 Nigeria ✓ Commodities
24 Karl Albrecht $25 Germany ✓ Retail
25 Carl Icahn $25 USA ✓ Finance
26 George Soros $23 USA ✓ Finance
27 David Thomson $23 Canada Media
28 Lui Che Woo $22 Hong Kong ✓ Entertainment
29 Dieter Schwarz $21 Germany Retail
30 Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud $20 Saudi Arabia ✓ Finance
31 Forrest Mars Jr. $20 USA Food
32 Jacqueline Mars $20 USA Food
33 John Mars $20 USA Food
34 Jorge Paulo Lemann $20 Brazil ✓ Drinks
35 Lee Shau Kee $20 Hong Kong ✓ Diversified
36 Steve Ballmer $19 USA ✓ Tech
37 Theo Albrecht Jr. $19 Germany Retail
38 Leonardo Del Vecchio $19 Italy ✓ Luxury
39 Len Blavatnik $19 USA ✓ Diversified
40 Alisher Usmanov $19 Russia ✓ Extractives
41 Mukesh Ambani $19 India Extractives
42 Masayoshi Son $18 Japan ✓ Telecom
43 Michael Otto $18 Germany Retail
44 Phil Knight $18 USA ✓ Retail
45 Tadashi Yanai $18 Japan ✓ Retail
46 Gina Rinehart $18 Australia Extractives
47 Mikhail Fridman $18 Russia ✓ Extractives
48 Michael Dell $18 USA ✓ Tech
49 Susanne Klatten $17 Germany Cars
50 Abigail Johnson $17 USA Finance
51 Viktor Vekselberg $17 Russia ✓ Metals
52 Lakshmi Mittal $17 India Metals
53 Vladimir Lisin $17 Russia ✓ Transport
54 Cheng Yu-tung $16 Hong Kong ✓ Diversified
55 Joseph Safra $16 Brazil ✓ Finance
56 Paul Allen $16 USA ✓ Tech
57 Leonid Mikhelson $16 Russia ✓ Extractives
58 Anne Cox Chambers $16 USA Media
59 Francois Pinault $16 France ✓ Retail
60 Iris Fontbona $16 Chile Extractives
61 Azim Premji $15 India Tech
62 Mohammed Al Amoudi $15 Saudi Arabia ✓ Extractives
63 Gennady Timchenko $15 Russia ✓ Extractives
64 Wang Jianlin $15 China ✓ Real Estate
65 Charles Ergen $15 USA ✓ Telecom
66 Stefan Quandt $15 Germany Cars
67 Germán Larrea Mota Velasco $15 Mexico Extractives
68 Harold Hamm $15 USA ✓ Extractives
69 Ray Dalio $14 USA ✓ Finance
70 Donald Bren $14 USA ✓ Real Estate
71 Georg Schaeffler $14 Germany Product
72 Luis Carlos Sarmiento $14 Colombia ✓ Finance
73 Ronald Perelman $14 USA ✓ Finance
74 Laurene Powell Jobs $14 USA Entertainment
75 Serge Dassault $14 France Aviation
76 John Fredriksen $14 Cyprus ✓ Transport
77 Vagit Alekperov $14 Russia ✓ Extractives
78 John Paulson $14 USA ✓ Finance
79 Rupert Murdoch $14 USA ✓ Media
80 Ma Huateng $13 China ✓ Tech

[MattSh]

10. And speaking of billionaires...

I'm running the WEE this WEEkend, and we're going to do some billionaire bashing. Drop by and join in the fun!

Now technically, our chosen topics don't have to officially be billionaires; any very rich person will do. That also goes for groups of very rich people, like sports leagues, trade associations, banksters, etc. Politicians of course are fair game, though they're generally not anywhere near billionaire territory.

I'll even have a top 10.

So start lining up your worst of the worst now!

[Demeter]

17. Does that include FORMER rich bastards, who have since died?

Leona Helmsley, and her "little people"!

[MattSh]

18. Sure...

Got to expose the sickness, whenever and wherever it might occur.

[Demeter]

9. UK trader accused of US market crash granted $7.5m bail

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/04/uk-trader-accused-market-crash-granted-75m-bail-150422175824347.html


The 36-year-old allegedly earned $40m within five years by manipulating market prices with lightning-fast software...A British trader, who is accused of contributing to the multi-billion-dollar "flash crash" on Wall Street in 2010, has been granted conditional bail while he contests extradition to the United States where he faces charges for alleged fraud and market manipulation. Navinder Singh Sarao, 36, was ordered on Wednesday to surrender his passport, report to a police station three times a week and pay a security of about $7.5m - the amount he has in his trading account. His parents also have to provide a security of more than $70,000.

He is accused of using lightning-fast software to manipulate the market for E-Mini S&P 500 futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange by buying and selling in milliseconds, scooping up tiny profits that quickly accumulate. Sarao, who typically worked from his home in the west London suburb of Hounslow, earned about $40m on security trading alone, according to a US criminal complaint filed in February and unsealed on Tuesday.

The complaint charged Sarao with one count of wire fraud, 10 counts of commodities fraud, 10 counts of commodities manipulation and one count of "spoofing". Spoofing involves bidding with the intent of quickly cancelling the bid. According to the document, Sarao engaged in illegal trading from 2009 to 2014, and did so on the day of the "flash crash". The May 6, 2010 crash slashed share values and led to panicky trading, with the Dow Jones eventually closing 348 points lower. The CFTC filed civil charges against Sarao on Tuesday. Sarao, who was arrested in April, will face a full extradition hearing in August.

On Wednesday, Tim Massad, the head of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said: "We will do everything in our power to pursue those who attempt to engage in fraud or manipulation in our markets."

[Hotler]

11. ........

"On Wednesday, Tim Massad, the head of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said: "We will do everything in our power to pursue those who attempt to engage in fraud or manipulation in our markets.""
That's f*%king funny.

So is this.
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Ensuring The Integrity Of The Futures & Swaps Markets


http://www.cftc.gov/About/MissionResponsibilities/index.htm

[Fuddnik]

13. It doesn't get much funnier than that!

[antigop]

14. Bill Clinton’s $80 Million Payday, or Why Politicians Don’t Care That Much About Reelection

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/its-not-about-reelection-bill-clintons-80-million-payday.html

“There was a kind of inflection point during the five-year period between 1997 and 2003 — the late Clinton and/or early Bush administration — when all the rules just went away. You went from a period, a regime, where people did have at least some concern about going to jail, to a point where everything is legal, and derivatives couldn’t be regulated at all and nobody went to jail for anything. And looking back I would say that this period definitely started under Clinton. You absolutely cannot blame this on George W. Bush.” – Charles Ferguson of Inside Job

“I never had any money until I got out of the White House, you know, but I’ve done reasonably well since then.” Bill Clinton

On December 21, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed a bill called the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. This law ensured that derivatives could not be regulated, setting the stage for the financial crisis. Just two months later, on February 5, 2001, Clinton received $125,000 from Morgan Stanley, in the form of a payment for a speech Clinton gave for the company in New York City. A few weeks later, Credit Suisse also hired Clinton for a speech, at a $125,000 speaking fee, also in New York. It turns out, Bill Clinton could make a lot of money, for not very much work.

Today, Clinton is worth something on the order of $80 million (probably much more, but we don’t really know), and these speeches have become a lucrative and consistent revenue stream for his family. Clinton spends his time offering policy advice, writing books, stumping for political candidates, and running a global foundation. He’s now a vegan. He makes money from books. But the speaking fee money stream keeps coming in, year after year, in larger and larger amounts.

Most activists and political operatives are under a delusion about American politics, which goes as follows. Politicians will do *anything* to get reelected, and they will pander, beg, borrow, lie, cheat and steal, just to stay in office. It’s all about their job.

This is 100% wrong. The dirty secret of American politics is that, for most politicians, getting elected is just not that important. What matters is post-election employment. It’s all about staying in the elite political class, which means being respected in a dense network of corporate-funded think tanks, high-powered law firms, banks, defense contractors, prestigious universities, and corporations. If you run a campaign based on populist themes, that’s a threat to your post-election employment prospects. [\div]

eta: Looks like the link for Bill's $125,000 speaking fee is actually a link to HRC's reports. But it lists Bill's $125,000 from Morgan Stanley.

[Fuddnik]

15. Look how heartbroken Eric Cantor is after losing the election.

As Stephen Colbert noted, "Rest assured that his new job and big salary are for services ALREADY RENDERED".

[Hotler]

19. ........

“I never had any money until I got out of the White House, you know, but I’ve done reasonably well since then.” Bill Clinton

But, but, but...
What about all the money he made allowing poppy Bush's cocaine to be flown into Arkansas when he was Governor? Google Barry Seal, Gene Chip Tatum, Rodney Stich

Tatum describes one meeting to "determine where $100 million in drug money disappeared on the three routes from Panama to Colorado, Ohio and Arkansas. This theft was draining the operation known as the 'Enterprise'.... The first call was made by Fernandez to Oliver North, informing North that the money loss was occurring on the panama to Arkansa route, and that means either Seal, Clinton or Noriega""

No hornor among thieves, since not only CIA piloy Barry Seal, but Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and Panama's General Manuel Noriega were all under suspicion of skimming George Bush Sr's cocaine profits.

And it gets better, Bill Clinton was groomed by the CIA.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. ETA News Release: Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report (04/23/2015)

Source: Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration

Read More: http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/eta20150703.pdf

U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration Washington, D.C. 20210
Release Number: USDL 15-703-NAT
Program Contacts: Tom Stengle [phone] Tony Sznoluch [phone]
Media Contact: [phone]

TRANSMISSION OF MATERIALS IN THIS RELEASE IS EMBARGOED UNTIL
8:30 A.M. (Eastern) Thursday, April 23, 2015

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending April 18, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 295,000, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 294,000. The 4-week moving average was 284,500, an increase of 1,750 from the previous week's unrevised average of 282,750.

There were no special factors impacting this week's initial claims.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.7 percent for the week ending April 11, unchanged from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 11 was 2,325,000, an increase of 50,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up 7,000 from 2,268,000 to 2,275,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,308,750, a decrease of 22,000 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since December 23, 2000 when it was 2,288,500. The previous week's average was revised up by 1,750 from 2,329,000 to 2,330,750.

UNADJUSTED DATA

....
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending April 4 was 2,434,208, a decrease of 93,051 from the previous week. There were 2,922,195 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2014.