The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits was 0.730 million in the week ended February 20th, compared to 0.861 million reported in the previous week. Today’s reading came in below market expectations of 0.838 million. Claims are still far from the 200 thousand level reported back in February due to slow labor market recovery.
Continuing claims reading, which lags initial jobless claims data by one week, reached 4.419 million, while analysts expected a decrease to 4.47 million.
New orders for US manufactured durable goods rose to 3.4 % in January, following a upwardly revised 1.2% increase in December and above analysts’ expectations of a 1.1%.
Durable Goods Orders Excluding Transportation declined to 1.40 % in January, following 0.70 % rise in December and compared to market expectations of 0.7%.
EURUSD saw a relatively small reaction to today’s data releases. The most popular currency pair continued to trade around 1.2225 level. Source: xStation5
