The Bear Trap Has Been Sprung

As suspected in my post from two days ago, anyone loading up on shorts yesterday based on the CNBC.com article about a gloomy employment figure coming out this week are likely to get shanked at the open today.  Initial jobless claims came in at 445k, or 10k lower than the expected 455k, and we're now spiking in the pre-market as a result.

And as predicted, the CNBC propaganda machine was ready and waiting with this headline article [Jobless Claims Edge Down to Lowest Level in 3 Months] - gotta love the spin doctors!

But don't forget another one of my posts earlier this week [Market Manipulation Addendum] describing how the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the folks who report these numbers, have had to upwardly revise their initial estimates in 22 out of the last 23 reporting instances.  Well scratch that, and make it now 23 out of 24 because today's report also shows an upward revision to last week's number by 3k in initial claims.  Anyone want to take a bet that today's number gets revised next week???? 

And while we're on the subject, Reuters has an article out today entitled, [Job Losses in 2009 Likely Bigger than Thought] indicating that the BLS will likely be coming clean on watered down reports for all of last year as well.  Absolutely pathetic. 

As for today, let's see how high this surge takes us this morning.  If Alcoa meets or beats, we could see an additional surge for the bulls....but then I think the party is over.  More on that later.