Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose broadly in line with market expectations, official data showed on Thursday.
In a report, the U.S. Department of Labor said the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending October 18 increased by 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 283,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 266,000.
Analysts had expected jobless claims to rise by 16,000 to 282,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended October 11 fell to 2.351 million from 2.389 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.380 million.
The four-week moving average was 281,000, a decline of 3,000 from the previous week’s total of 284,000. The monthly average is seen as a more accurate gauge of labor trends because it reduces volatility in the week-to-week data.
EUR/USD was trading at 1.2661 from around 1.2669 ahead of the release of the data, while GBP/USD was at 1.6028 from 1.6038 earlier.
Meanwhile, the outlook for U.S. equity markets was upbeat. The Dow futures indicated a gain of 0.8% at the open, the S&P 500 futures pointed to a rise of 0.8%, while Nasdaq 100 futures tacked on 0.8%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,234.40 a troy ounce, compared to $1,234.80 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $81.15 a barrel from $81.18 earlier.