US jobless claims were a non-event. Again.

If you were looking for evidence to shift the Fed narrative, it wasn’t forthcoming from Thursday’s initial filers print which, at 232,000, matched consensus on the nose.

Do note: The update covered NFP survey week. So it did have market-moving potential in the event of a surprise. But, again, there were no surprises.

The prior week was revised higher, but just barely. If you were hard up for headlines on a somnolent summer Thursday, you could shout that US jobless claims rose “for the first time this month.” But you wouldn’t be saying anything. The 4,000 week-to-week increase was meaningless.

The four-week average for the initial claims headline is now 236,000, the lowest in a month. Continuing claims were lower than expected at 1.863 million for the week to August 10. The prior week was revised down.

Meanwhile, the Fed chatter ahead of Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole address on Friday didn’t betray much in the way of urgency. Jeffrey Schmid suggested he’s not ready to cut yet. “I think we need to see a little bit more [data],” he told Bloomberg, warning on a possible “demand pickup if we’re not careful.”

For her part, Susan Collins said she doesn’t see any red flags in the spending numbers. The labor market’s healthy despite the big revisions unveiled this week by the BLS and any rate-cutting should be gradual, she told Fox.