It’s a rather dyslexic market as the major equity indices are struggling to pop above the breakeven line. This morning, weekly jobless claims actually rose in the week ended April 4^th and the prior week’s reading was revised higher as well. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased for the first time in five weeks to a seasonally adjusted 281,000 from an upwardly revised 267,000 in the prior week. However, the number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits (continuing claims) decreased to a new fourteen-year low of 2.304 million. Additionally, natural gas futures are on the decline after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) noted that natural gas inventories for the week ended April 3^rd, increased by 15 billion cubic feet (bcf) to a grand total of 1,476 bcf in storage. This just about negates the 18 billion bcf draw in the prior week.

Aside from the initial jobless claims and weekly natural gas inventories, there was one other major economic report worth mentioning. Wholesale inventories relative to sales remain quite bloated for the second month in a row, up 0.3% versus a decline of 0.2% in wholesale sales in February. This discrepancy keeps the inventory-to-sales ratio unchanged at a whopping 1.29, which is the highest reading since the recession in June 2009. The prior month’s revisions were also unfavorable, with the inventory build revised a tenth higher to +0.4% and sales revised lower to -3.6% from an initial reading of -3.1%. January primarily showed a massive downswing in petroleum-related products, which made it the worst month for wholesale sales since the peak of the recession in March 2009.

Multiple sectors caused the drop, with electrical goods, machinery, metals, and automobiles all pulling February’s number down. This ultimately points to weakness in the industrial economy, most likely because of the drop in exports. The wholesale sector, between manufacturing and retailing, shows that there is weakness in demand on the retail end and slowing production on the manufacturing side. All of these components point to a slowdown in employment growth and ultimately do not point to any positive signs for the retail sales numbers out next week.