It's Thursday, January 14, 2021. This is the Real Vision Daily Briefing and I'm Ed Harrison.

I'm going to be joined shortly by a special guest, so I won't tell you until we get to him but first the news of the day from

Haley Drasnan.

Hey Ed stocks slipped on Thursday ahead of President-elect Biden's stimulus speech,

all three major indexes had risen earlier in the day,

only to give up their gains in the final hour

of the trading session.

The economy still needs help, and how Biden's proposed plan will impact

the real economy is key, especially when it comes to small businesses.

The plan is expected to include a boost to the recent $600 direct payment, an extension of increased unemployment insurance, and support for state and local governments.

The stimulus could be as big as 2 trillion.

This fiscal aid will help with the recent slump in economic activity.

I mean today, numbers released initial jobless claims data showed 965,000 Americans applied for unemployment

benefits in the week ending in January 9th.

That's more than was expected.

In fact, it's the highest since mid-August and well above the roughly

800,000 a week that we've seen on average in recent months. That number

again, again, isn't anything near the number we saw in April,

but it still doesn't paint a pretty picture.

In fact, it's four times more than the first two months in 2020.

Again, this was pre-Covid lockdowns, but we're essentially stuck at a level that's

four times where it should be. And these numbers show that the ADP and jobs reports from December were not really

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