GBP/USD is trading at $1.2221. The U.S. has reported nearly 86,000 coronavirus cases to date and this rapid increase in the number of cases continues to weaken the country`s economy.
Yesterday's event, the U.S. Jobless claim data was released and as analysts expected the numbers were pretty high. The previous was 282,000, the forecast was 1.803 million and the actual was higher than the forecast at a record 3.28 million for the past week. Investors were awaiting this data because it would give a clearer picture of how much the coronavirus has impacted the U.S. economy. How high the number of people receiving unemployment benefits is, shows just how devastating the impact of the coronavirus has been on the U.S. economy so far.
Stephen Gallagher, U.S. chief economist at Societe Generale (PA:SOGN) in New York said, "Containment efforts in response to the coronavirus resulted in a very sudden and very dramatic change over just a few days. Layoffs were part of that change and applicants appear to have flooded state unemployment insurance offices within a very short time-span.