Investors backed away from stocks today on news from the US Labor Department revealed that initial claims for unemployment benefits rose by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 434,000 last week. The increase was lower than some analysts predicted but still indicates that the rate of job losses in the US, while slowing, is still not reversing.
The Non-Farm Payroll results are due tomorrow morning with the “street” calling for a slight increase in overall unemployment of 10.1 percent for December compared to 10.0 percent for the previous month.
