US weekly Initial Jobless Claims decline to 220K vs. 230K expected

• Initial Jobless Claims in the US declined by 22,000 in the week ending December 14.
• US Dollar Index stays in negative territory near 108.00.

There were 220,000 initial jobless claims in the week ending December 14, the weekly data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) showed on Thursday. This print followed the previous week's print of 242,000 and came in better than the market expectation of 230,000.

Further details of the publication revealed that the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2% and the 4-week moving average stood at 225,500, an increase of 1,250 from the previous week's unrevised average.

"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending December 7 was 1,874,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level" the DOL further noted in its publication.

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index showed no immediate reaction to this data and was last seen losing 0.18% on the day at 108.00.