US: 2.1 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week

• Initial Jobless Claims in US came in at 2.12 million in week ending May 23.
• US Dollar Index posts small daily losses below 99.00.

There were 2,123,000 Initial Claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending May 23rd, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday. This reading came in slightly worse than the market expectation of 2.1 million.

Additional takeaways

"The 4-week moving average was 2,608,000, a decrease of 436,000 from the previous week's revised average."

"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 14.5% for the week ending May 16, a decrease of 2.6 percentage points from the previous week's revised rate."

" The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 16 was 21,052,000, a decrease of 3,860,000 from the previous week's revised level."

Market reaction 

The US Dollar Index largely ignored this data and was last seen losing 0.05% on the day at 98.90.