In the previous 2 weeks the U.S. surpassed all of the job losses from the 2008/2009 financial crisis by 2 million. Simply dividing 10M lost jobs(This morning’s numbers by DoL) by the number of Total Confirmed cases (217,000 ) and we end up with 46 jobs lost per confirmed coronavirus case.

US Initial Jobless Claims surges to record highs of 6.6 million, almost double market estimates of 3.5 million. Could we see further downside for markets? The next leg down? #StockMarketCrash2020 #joblessclaims #unemployment #indices #trading #investing — InAgent (@InAgentUK) April 2, 2020

Earlier today Department of Labor reported that “in the week ending March 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 6,648,000,(in one week) an increase of 3,341,000 from the previous week’s numbers.” They noted that this is “the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series“. No state reported a decrease in jobless claims.

To put this in layman’s terms – You are witnessing the history. Never happened before but we are sure we are in for a big surprise when we receive the next week’s numbers.

If we use the same method (dividing the number of confirmed cases with the number of lost jobs), in Spain every confirmed coronavirus case incurred a loss of 8 jobs. Spain reported 110,000 coronavirus infections so far and above 10K deaths. In Spain, since March 12, almost 900,000 jobs have been lost.

March has traditionally been the month in which the seasonal Spanish labor market begins to gain strength. The coronavirus has arrived just at this moment and has abruptly cut that start, completely stopping one of the main engines of the Spanish economy: tourism.

But the biggest surprise of this day is not the number of the people that applied for unemployment benefits. The biggest surprise is how the markets reacted to this information. Markets did not move a nudge. At least someone is optimistic these days. Speculators.

If investors actually knew what their buy side brokerage firms were doing, they would lose their minds. No one buys stocks on a 6.6M weekly jobless claims print. No one that should be in the investment business anyways. — Robot1775N14250E (@worldmoneysdr) April 2, 2020