Weekly Jobless Claims Decline
Zacks Investment Research | Aug 04, 2021 11:10PM ET
Stock futures point to a higher opening today as Weekly Jobless Claims data displayed a decline. Initial Jobless Claims decreased 14,000 to 385,000 for the week ended Jul 31. However, this compares to the consensus estimate of 382,000. The previous week's data was revised downward 1,000 to 399,000.
Despite improvement in weekly unemployment benefit claims in absolute terms, the figure is still much higher than roughly 200,000 in the pre-pandemic level. The 4-week moving average, which smooths out weekly fluctuations, came in at 394,000 compared to downwardly revised 394,250 in the previous week.
Continuing Claims— those who have collected benefits for two straight weeks — were reported at one week lag. This metric dropped sharply by 366,000 to 2.93 million for the week ended Jul 24. For the first time since Mar 14, 2020, continuing claims fell below 3 million.
For the week ended Jul 17, the total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits from government programs across the board was nearly 12.98 million, a decrease of 181,250 from the previous week.
U.S. Trade Deficitin goods and services traded was $75.7 billion in June, increasing $4.8 billion from $71.0 billion in May. The consensus estimate was for a deficit of $73.3 billion. Total exports were valued at $207.7 billion in June, an increase of $1.2 billion from May. Total imports were valued at $283.4 billion in June, an increase of $6 billion from the previous month.
The Bank of England (BOE) has kept its benchmark lending rate as low as 0.1%, where it has been since March 2020. In a majority vote, the central bank has also decided to continue with the quantitative easing program at £895 billion ($1.25 trillion). However, BOE projects the inflation rate to reach 4% in Q4 2021 and Q1 2022, compared to the estimated 3.5% in May.
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