US: Weekly Initial Jobless Claims rise to 885K vs. 800K expected

• Weekly Initial Jobless Claims in the US rose by 23,000 last week.
• US Dollar Index stays deep in the negative territory below 90.

There were 885,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending December 12th, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday.

This reading followed last week’s print of 862,000 (revised from 853,000) and missed the market expectation of 800,000 by a wide margin.

Market reaction

The greenback continues to have a difficult time finding demand after this report. As of writing, the US Dollar Index was down 0.7% on a daily basis at 89.80.

Additional takeaways

“The 4-week moving average was 812,500, an increase of 34,250 from the previous week’s revised average.”

“The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.8% for the week ending December 5, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the previous week’s unrevised rate.”

“The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending December 5 was 5,508,000, a decrease of 273,000 from the previous week’s revised level.”