Initial Jobless Claims Unchanged

(Updated for announced layoffs and early market movement on news)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (TheStreet) -- Initial claims for the week ended Nov. 14 were 505,000, unchanged from the previous week's revised figure. That figure brought the four-week moving average to 514,000, a decrease of 6,500 from the previous week's revised average of 520,500.

See Our Photo Gallery : U.S. Layoffs Mounts

From a market standpoint, the question is then: With flat weekly results from the job market, will no news be good news, or bad news?

The lack of change in the unemployment figure may mean that the markets will view the job situation as a continuing drag on the economy. Or, the market may wait for other important economic surveys today, including the Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators Index and the Philadelphia Reserve Board's monthly business survey, before digesting the data.

Economists, of course, often look most closely at the four-week moving average, and a further decline in that number could spark a positive reaction from the markets. And with overseas markets down overnight on the poor home-starts numbers coming out of the U.S. yesterday, that could have a greater effect on the market morning.

Indeed, all the major market indexes opened lower, with the Dow down 0.64%; the S%P down 0.88%; and the Nasdaq down a little over 1% in early morning trading.