Jobless claims dipped last week by a meager 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 444,000, the Labor Department reported this morning. But even that spare decline is less than it seems. The previous week’s claims were revised up by 4,000, making the last two weeks more or less a wash, depending on whether you’re feeling statistically generous or not.

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Gold is trading at a record high today—roughly $1240/oz as we write this morning. The standard interpretation is that the metal is pricing in higher inflation in the years ahead. That’s an accurate reading of gold’s message, but the analysis is more complicated than usual once you consider the metal’s trend of late in context with other markets and the global economic climate. In the short term, the rising demand for gold is also telling us that the risk is rising (again) for a new wave of deflation in the months ahead.

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Fiat currencies ultimately succumb to the follies of government largess, but the denouement rarely comes quickly. So it goes that the rumors of the euro’s death have been premature.

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Is momentum investing irrational? Momentum here is defined as the persistence of recent pricing trends to continue in the short-term future. It’s not a trick question, but it’s complicated. As financial economics continues to identify “factors” (or alternative betas, if you prefer), the new insight both helps and hinders the effort to clarify the truth about asset pricing. One the one hand, documenting the case that securities prices are driven by more than the “market” beta represents an attack against modern portfolio theory and the efficient market hypothesis. Yet the same smoking guns can also be used to defend EMH. The momentum factor offers an intriguing example.

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Greece, the risks and ramifications…

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Healthcare deficits, muni bubbles, PIGS, the problem with Europe’s currency, and thinking about interest rates as a mechanism for reflecting market information…

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The news arrived just in the nick of time. Nonfarm payrolls surged by 290,000 last month (seasonally adjusted), the biggest rise in four years. This is good news—great news, in fact, as it suggests that the labor market is in fact recovering with substantial momentum. Given yesterday’s wave of market selling around the globe, the news comes at a crucial moment in the business cycle. Indeed, the outlook would indeed appear bleak if today’s employment numbers were low or (gasp!) negative.

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Today’s weekly update on jobless claims offers a glimmer of hope that there’s enough growth momentum in the economy to push new filings lower in the weeks ahead. But after reading yesterday’s disappointing ADP employment report, we’re not expected any sudden bursts of good news. Tomorrow’s jobs report from the Labor Department may suggest otherwise, of course. But for the moment, it’s still touch and go with payrolls.

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Let’s hope today’s ADP National Employment Report is wrong. Nonfarm private employment increased by a meager 32,000 last month, according to this report. The general trend is fine, but that’s far below the consensus forecast by economists for this Friday’s government update on April payrolls. More importantly, a net rise of 32,000 is hopelessly insignificant given the extent of the 8-million-plus job losses in the Great Recession. But what the economy needs, and what it ultimately gets, may be two different things.

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Your trusty editor reviews the strategy, including a trio of new momentum index funds in the new issue of Financial Advisor magazine. “Momentum investing has long been a thorn in the side of conventional market theories,” the article begins. “That doesn’t dim its power as a strategic investment tool, but it can still be an awkward beast.” For the details, read on…