US: Weekly Initial Jobless Claims decline to 293K vs. 319K expected

• Weekly Initial Jobless Claims in US declined by 36,000.
• US Dollar Index stays relatively quiet below 94.00.

There were 293,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending October 9, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday. This reading followed the previous print of 329,000 (revised from 326,000) and came in better than the market expectation of 319,000.

Market reaction

Investors largely ignored these figures and the US Dollar Index was last seen losing 0.06% on the day at 93.93.

Additional takeaways

"The 4-week moving average was 334,250, a decrease of 10,500 from the previous week's revised average."

"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.9% for the week ending October 2."

"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending October 2 was 2,593,000, a decrease of 134,000 from the previous week's revised level."