U.S. initial jobless claims report record 3.283 million, markets rally

The U.S. initial jobless claims are out. And they were ugly.

For the week ending March 21, weekly initial jobless claims were 3.283 million, up from 280,000 in the previous week. This is the biggest reading on record, beating the two records set during the Great Recession and October 1982 with 655,000 and 695,000 respectively.

Every industry saw huge records of unemployment, but it was most pronounced in the accommodations and food services sectors.

Here is an interesting chart to take a gander at:

You would think the market would crash on the news. Not quite. Instead, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up more than 1,000 points at the time of this writing. Either the report was priced in or investors think the worst is over because next week’s reading could not top 3.28 million.

This has been one of the oddest markets to ever pay attention to. It is frustrating and it boggles the mind.

So, tomorrow and Monday could be true tests if this is really the bottom. If everyone sells tomorrow to take the profits and Monday is red, we have yet to hit bottom.

Time will tell.