US: Weekly Initial Jobless Claims decline to 348K vs. 363K expected

• Weekly Initial Jobless Claims in US declined by 29,000.
• US Dollar Index stays in the positive territory above 93.30.

There were 348,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending August 14, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday. This reading followed the previous print of 377,000 (revised from 375,000) and came in better than the market expectation of 363,000.

Market reaction

The greenback continues to outperform its rivals after this report and the US Dollar Index was last seen rising 0.23% on the day at 93.36.

Additional takeaways

"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.1% for the week ending August 7."

"The 4-week moving average was 377,750, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week's revised average."

"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending August 7 was 2,820,000, a decrease of 79,000 from the previous week's revised level."