Unemployment Claims at New Low

The Department of Labor announced today that the number of unemployment claims has dropped to a nearly four-year low, welcome news to a market looking to shake off the cloak of a sluggish economy. The Dow (INDEX: ^DJI) did its part by cheerfully taking the hint to climb throughout the morning, fueled in addition by an extremely positive earnings report from Bank of America (NYS: BAC) .

Source: http://ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/wkclaims/report.asp

While falling unemployment numbers are a possible precursor to a wave of hiring, it will be a long road back to pre-recession levels. But for now, these new numbers are a pretty solid move in the right direction.

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