Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. fell towards the lowest level in 40 years last week, boosting optimism over the labor market, official data showed on Wednesday.
In a report, the U.S. Department of Labor said the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending November 21 declined by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 260,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 272,000.
First-time jobless claims have held below the 300,000-level for 37 consecutive weeks, which is usually associated with a firming labor market.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended November 14 rose to 2.207 million from 2.173 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.164 million.
The four-week moving average was 271,000, unchanged from the previous week. 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 1.0581 from around 1.0587 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.5086 from 1.5088 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 122.75 from 122.72 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 100.10, compared to 100.06 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open. The Dow futures pointed to a gain of 60 points, or 0.33%, the S&P 500 futures indicated a rise 7 points, or 0.31%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures increased 16 points, or 0.35%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,070.70 a troy ounce, compared to $1,072.80 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $42.14 a barrel from $42.16 earlier.