Weekly unemployment applications tick up slightly

The number of people filing for unemployment benefits rose last week to 372,000. That’s 4,000 more than the previous week.

For more on this, we spoke with Susan Schmidt, head of U.S. equities at Mesirow financial.

Analysts were predicting fairly similar numbers, she points out, so this news shouldn’t “rock” the markets one way or another.

“But it’s not an indication that things are getting better,” Schmidt says, “which is what the markets need to see to have a definitive move in the upward direction.”