US: Weekly Initial Jobless Claims rise to 240K vs. 225K expected

• Initial Jobless Claims in the US rose by 17,000 in the week ending November 19.
• US Dollar Index struggles to gain traction, stays below 107.00.

There were 240,000 initial jobless claims in the week ending November 19, the weekly data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) showed on Wednesday. This print followed the previous week's print of 223,000 and came in worse than the market expectation of 225,000.

Further details of the publication revealed that the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.1% and the 4-week moving average was 226,750, an increase of 5,500 from the previous week's revised average.

"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending November 12 was 1,551,000, an increase of 48,000 from the previous week's revised level," the DOL noted in its publication.

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index stays under modest bearish pressure after this data and was last seen losing 0.22% on the day at 106.90.