U.S. weekly initial jobless claims rise

U.S. initial jobless claims rose last week. In the week ended 20 April, the initial jobless claims rose by 37k to 230k, as compared with expectations of a modest rise. At 230k, initial jobless claims are back at levels last seen in February. The rise comes on the back of a sharp fall the prior week that had brought initial claims to their lowest levels in five decades and, as a share of employment, to all-time record lows.

“We do not take much signal from this w/w volatility in the data and view the four-week moving average at 206k as consistent with healthy labor markets”, noted Barclays in a research report.

Region wise, the largest rises were reported in states such as California, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York, which combined accounted for half of the weekly rise.

Continuing claims for the week ended 13 April were widely unchanged at 1.655 million, leaving the series slightly above the recovery-level low of 1.649 million reached in October of last year. The insured jobless rate remained stable at 1.2 percent.

At 18:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was slightly bullish at 57.8976 more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex