This just in - new federal securities class actions continued to be filed at a strong pace.

Indeed, strong may be a bit of an understatement as the activity in January 2008 is nearly 50% over historical levels when extrapolated out to a yearly basis.

The numbers are a little fuzzy (see our earlier post here on why that is) but at least 24 new federal securities class actions were filed in January 2008. That translates to 288 new cases per year.

Compare that to the 9 new federal securities class actions filed in January 2007, and the results are even starker. New case filings are up more than 250% from the same period last year.

And lest you say that this new crop of cases solely relates to the burgeoning subprime crisis, the newly filed cases involving Panera Bread, Comcast and American Dental Partners, among others, have little, if anything to do with mortgages, subprime or otherwise.

As far as the fuzziness of the numbers, it has to do with whether new cases will be consolidated with earlier (or later) cases involving similar claims, but filed in different jurisdictions (Freddie Mac), or against different defendants (Countrywide) for example.

And while four of those 24 cases may be reasonably predicted to later be consolidated into other actions, but that would still leave 20 new cases in one month. That would still translate to 240 new federal securities class action cases on an annualized basis, a nearly 25% jump over historical averages.