The number of Americans filling for unemployment benefits was 1.006 million in the week ended August 22nd, after 1.1 million thousand in the previous week, bringing total claims above 57.0 million since March 21st when the coronavirus pandemic started in the US. Today’s reading came in slightly above market expectations of 1 million, however still remains far above 665,000 filed at the peak of the Great Recession in March 2009.
Continuing claims, which lags initial jobless claims data by one week, reach 14.53 million, while analysts expected a drop to 14.45 million.
This might be a sign that the labour market recovery may take much more time than initially expected.
Meanwhile revised US GDP report for Q2 2020 showed that the US economy shrank 31.7%(annualized). Market expected a drop of 32.5%. Private consumption declined to 34.1% while analysts’ expected a drop of 34.6% (annualized).
EURUSD saw relatively small reaction to today’s data releases. The most popular currency pair continued to trade around 1.1810 level. Source: xStation5
