US Unemployment Claims Show Slow Improvement

Thursday, 31 March 2011 15:13

The Department of Labor revealed a drop by 6,000 (388K) in the number of individuals who filed for unemployment insurance for the first time during the past week. However, the number falls below expectations after the previous week’s unemployment claims were revised up to 394K.

The revision to the upside is a result of a change is seasonal adjustment factors and affects all data since 2006.

The 4-week moving average was 394,250, an increase of 3,250 from the previous week's revised average of 391,000.

The data remains in pace with the slow but steady improvement of the US employment of the past months. The market waits for Friday’s unemployment rate which is expected to hover around 8.9%.

The Chicago PMI decelerated to 70.6 in March from 71.2 in February.

Factory Orders missed expectations with a 0.1% decrease instead of an expect 0.7% improvement. This decline is the first since December 2011.