The Labor Department reported this morning that new claims for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week. They said that 346,000 new claims were filed last week. This was well below the 395,000 that was expected and a drop of 58,000 claims from the previous week. That is good news for the economy, meaning its negative news for bonds and mortgage rates. Fortunately though, this data only tracks a week's worth of claims and is not usually considered to be of high importance to the markets.