Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell to the a four-week low, boosting optimism over the health of the economy and supporting the case for a U.S. interest rate hike this year, 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 June 13 decreased by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 267,000 from the previous week’s total of 279,000. Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to fall by 2,000 to 275,000 last week.
First-time jobless claims have held below the 300,000-level for 15 consecutive weeks, which is usually associated with a firming labor market.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended June 6 fell to 2.222 million from 2.272 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.200 million.
The four-week moving average was 276,750, a decline of 2,000 from the previous week’s total of 275,000. 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 1.1399 from around 1.1391 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.5913 from 1.5909 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 122.62 from 122.77 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 93.89, compared to 94.00 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a modestly higher open. The Dow futures pointed to a gain of 0.35%, the S&P 500 futures tacked on 0.3%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 0.35%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,200.30 a troy ounce, compared to $1,201.40 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $60.92 a barrel from $60.91 earlier.