Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose less than expected, fuelling optimism over the strength of the labor market, 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 January 31 increased by 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 278,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 267,000.
Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to rise by 23,000 to 290,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended January 24 rose to 2.400 million from 2.394 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to increase to 2.395 million.
The four-week moving average was 292,750, a decrease of 6,500 from the previous week’s total of 299,250. 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 1.1414 from around 1.1402 ahead of the release of the data, while GBP/USD was at 1.5290 from 1.5269 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 117.46 from 117.52 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 94.10, compared to 94.18 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open. The Dow futures pointed to a gain of 0.55% at the open, the S&P 500 futures rose 0.65%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures tacked on 0.45%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,262.40 a troy ounce, compared to $1,263.90 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $49.50 a barrel from $44.56 earlier.