U.S. Jobless Claims Rise above Expectations to Hit 770,000

U.S. jobless claims for the week ending March 13 was 770,000, up 45,000 from the previous week, according to the Department of Labor press release. The claims were higher than the consensus estimate of 700,000.

• Previous week jobless claims were revised up by 13,000 from 712,000 to 725,000.
• Continuing claims totaled 4.124 million, down from 4.142 million the previous week and below the consensus estimate of 4.07 million.
• The previous week’s continuous claims were revised down by 2,000 from 4.144 million to 4.142 million.
• Advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0%, up 0.1 percentage point from the previous week’s revised rate.
• The unadjusted advance number of actual initial claims under state programs totaled 746,496, up 3.4% from the previous week.

U.S stocks are currently declining as the dollar gains. SPY is down 0.71%, QQQ is down 1.85%, EUR/USD is down 0.46%.