Unemployment Claims (Weekly)

Daily Forex Fundamentals | Written by The LFB-Forex.com | Aug 07 08 12:46 GMT |

Actual 455k, Expected 420k, Previous 448k

Release Explanation: The number of workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits. Very important that economic forecasts are based on the labor market. Economic strength builds from the willingness/confidence of firms to hire, without a strong labor market growth is hard to achieve. A currency will strengthen or weaken in-line with the other releases that the Employment Data impacts, rather than as a knee-jerk reaction to these numbers printing. This report also provides the number of weekly continuing claims as well as 4 week moving averages of new and continuing claims, which most economists prefer to use.

Trade Desk Thoughts: Today's number certainly indicates the labor market is deteriorating, as all of the metrics contained in today's report worsened. The 4-week moving average of new claims increased sharply to 419,500, an increase of 26,750 from the previous week's revised average of 392,750. The number of people continuing to receive claims was 3,311,000, an increase of 31,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,280,000. The 4-week moving average of continuing claims was 3,201,000, an increase of 27,000 from the preceding week's revised average of 3,174,000.

Forex Technical Reaction: The dollar had weakened in the overnight session against most major currencies, while S&P futures were down 0.4% and oil was up 2%. S&P futures declined to a loss of 0.7% after the release and the dollar weakened further against the other currencies.

The LFB-Forex.com