>On Thursday, December 11, 2003, at 09:59 AM, Dwayne Monroe quoted:
>
>>Source URL - (Yahoo!) http://tinyurl.com/yre1
>>
>[snip]
>>A closely watched four-week average of claims, which
>>smooths weekly volatility, rose 2,250 to 364,750.
>
>One thing I've always wondered about economic journalism, which the
>economic gurus on the list might clear up for me:
>
>What exactly does "closely watched" mean? Somehow, I get this image
>of a bunch of near-sighted accountants pulling off their green
>eye-shades and putting their noses right on the "closely watched"
>whatever-it-is.
It means that it's one of the economic indicators that economists and traders (mostly on Wall Street) take most seriously. It's forecasted and traded against. Unlike, say, the second revision of the quarterly GDP stats.
Doug