Economically speaking, we live in a very unusual time in the way economists interpret upbeat economic data.

The US Department of Labor released its weekly jobless claims report at 8:30 AM ET, revealing that jobless claims rose to a two-month high. Jobless claims rose by 9000 resulting in a total of 224,000 individuals that applied for unemployment benefits.

Today the Federal Reserve concluded its first open market committee meeting of the year. Three important takeaways were revealed in both the written Fed statement and comments made by Chairman Powell at the following press conference.