US weekly Initial Jobless Claims decline to 227K vs. 235K expected

• Initial Jobless Claims in the US declined by 7,000 in the week ending August 10.
• US Dollar Index rebounds toward 103.00 after the data.

There were 227,000 initial jobless claims in the week ending August 10, the weekly data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) showed on Thursday. This print followed the previous week’s print of 234,000 (revised from 233,000) and came in better than the market expectation of 235,000.

Further details of the publication revealed that the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2% and the 4-week moving average stood at 236,500, a decrease of 4,500 from the previous week’s unrevised average.

“The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending August 3 was 1,864,000, a decrease of 7,000 from the previous week’s revised level,” the DOL further noted in its publication.

Market reaction

The US Dollar gathered strength against its rivals with the immediate reaction. At the time of press, the US Dollar Index was up 0.4% on the day at 102.97.