From today’s WSJ By KRISTINA PETERSON NEW YORK—U.S. stock futures pared their gains after weekly jobless claims unexpectedly fell to their lowest level in 18 months… ---- Jobless claims are down (i.e. an indicator that employment is getting better, or at least not getting worse). Implied result, futures down (because investors are worried this is bad for the economy?) Now, I know there is some convoluted logic that can tie these together (employment better -> fed may increase interest rates -> cost of capital up -> stock prices down -> futures prices down). But the article doesn’t mention any causal mechanism like that. In a literal sense, the reporter has her butt covered because stock futures pared their gains, and it did in fact happen after (i.e. not before) the announcement of falling weekly jobless claims. It also happened after I had spaghetti for dinner last night, which I think might make more sense. I know that financial reporters don’t need to be as up on things as financial analysts or CFA charterholders, but geez, they should at least make some sense.