Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose modestly, 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 October 25 increased by 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 287,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 284,000.
Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall by 1,000 to 283,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended October 18 rose to 2.384 million from 2.355 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.350 million.
The four-week moving average was 281,000, a decline of 250 from the previous week’s total of 281,250. 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 1.2569 from around 1.2582 ahead of the release of the data, while GBP/USD was at 1.5976 from 1.5982 earlier.
Meanwhile, the outlook for U.S. equity markets was downbeat. The Dow futures indicated a loss of 0.3% at the open, the S&P 500 futures pointed to a decline of 0.35%, while Nasdaq 100 futures shed 0.4%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,200.20 a troy ounce, compared to $1,202.50 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $81.46 a barrel from $81.48 earlier.