If the question’s whether market participants cared about US jobless claims on Thursday, the answer’s a hard “no.”

Technically, traders were back at work, but it’ll be next week before anyone’s earnestly engaged.

Of course, the jobless care about jobless claims, and the “bulletproof” labor market narrative’s the most important chapter of the larger US economic “exceptionalism” tale, so it’s worth noting that the initial filers headline came in well below estimates. In fact, 211,000 was the lowest since April, and undershot consensus by a country mile.

The four-week average slipped to 223,250, the first decline in five weeks.

Familiar refrain: It’s a mistake to read too much into these holiday prints. This readout was for the week to December 28. Still, it’s hard (read: impossible) to make a recession case with claims at 211,000.

Macro naysayers hunting (and hurting) for evidence do have an accomplice in the ongoing filers series, which regularly makes new “since 2021” highs. But not today. Continuing claims fell to 1.844 million in the week to December 21, Thursday’s release showed.

That was a 52,000 drop, and it (more than) erased the prior week’s big jump, which was anyway revised to show a smaller increase. Indeed, the week-to-week decline was the largest since last holiday season.

Suffice to say these figures aren’t going to settle any of the various and sundry macro debates raging at the onset of a new calendar, but either we care about the data or we don’t.

Put differently: Are we “data-dependent” or aren’t we? If we are, these are the sort of numbers which argue against additional Fed easing, and thereby for higher yields and a stronger dollar.