by Calculated Risk on 12/07/2006 10:57:00 AM

After listening to the Toll conference call, I referred to Credit Suisse analyst Ivy Zelman as she. Now from the AP:

In conjunction with the sector downgrade, Zelman upgraded KB Home to "Neutral" from "Underperform." He's still concerned KB Home expanded too aggressively during the bubble and that the company's assets are at risk of declining in value. However, Zelman said he thinks that risk is reflected in the stock.

"He"?


An excerpt from a short bio of Ms. Zelman:

Ivy Zelman is a Managing Director at Credit Suisse First Boston, where she is also an Equity Research Analyst responsible for covering a total of 23 homebuilding, building products and furniture companies. For the last four years she has earned honors as the highest rated housing analyst in the nation by both the Institutional Investors All American Research Team and the Greenwich Associates Institutional Research Services Poll.

And how about this headline from AP on Unemployment Claims: Jobless Claims Fall by Most in 6 Months

The total number of claims filed last week fell to 324,000, a decline of 34,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That represented the biggest one-week drop since the first week in June.

The numbers are correct, but the hook is misleading.

Click on graph for larger image.

Weekly claims are very noisy, so most analysts follow the 4-week moving average of weekly claims. The 4-week moving average has been moving up and is now at 328,750.

For claims, the trend is important, and the recent trend is an increase in claims.

Note: weekly claims isn't a reliable leading indicator for recessions. If a recession occurs, the 4-week moving average will probably be above 350K (dashed line on graph), but a rise above 350K could also be a false positive.