Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose broadly in line with 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 March 14 increased by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 291,000 from the previous week’s total of 290,000.
Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to rise by 2,000 to 292,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended March 7 fell to 2.417 million from 2.428 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.410 million.
The four-week moving average was 304,750, an increase of 2,250 from the previous week’s total of 302,500. 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 1.0641 from around 1.0667 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.4837 from 1.4854 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 120.93 from 120.86 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 99.44, compared to 99.31 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a modestly lower open. The Dow futures pointed to a drop of 0.2%, the S&P 500 futures shed 0.25%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.1%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,160.70 a troy ounce, compared to $1,162.30 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $45.13 a barrel from $45.11 earlier.