U.S. Unemployment Claims (Weekly) Actual 637K, Expected 608K, Previous 605K
Release Explanation: This report provides the number of people claiming new unemployment benefits and the number of people who are continuing to claim unemployment benefits. Both metrics are provided in weekly and in 4-week moving average form. Very important 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”, TheLFB-Forex.com Trade Team members said. “Over time the Employment Data will affect all economic releases, it does however take time for labor trends to form. 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”, they added. Economists tend to look more at the 4-week numbers because weekly numbers can be volatile although the market reacts to the headline numbers initially.
Trade Desk Thoughts: The number of new claims for unemployment benefits for the week ending May 09 increased by 32,000 to 637,000, the Labor Department said today. Economists had expected to see 608,000 new claims. The four-week moving average, which aims to smooth volatility in the data, increased to 630,500 from 624,500 an increase of 6,000.
The advance rate for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 02 was 4.9%, an increase of 0.1% from the previous week’s unrevised rate of 4.8% The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 02 was 6,560,000, an increase of 202,000 from the prior week’s revised level of 6,358,000.
Forex Technical Reaction: S&P futures have declined since the release. The dollar has strengthened across the board since the employment data was released.