Weekly Jobless Claims Continue With Strength

The U.S. Department of Labor has released its reading on weekly jobless claims. People who applied for jobless benefits decreased by 14,000 to 298,000. This was a decline from the previous level of 312,000, which had been revised from the preliminary report…

Published August 21, 2014, 8:55am ET · 1 min read

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The U.S. Department of Labor has released its reading on weekly jobless claims. People who applied for jobless benefits decreased by 14,000 to 298,000. This was a decline from the previous level of 312,000, which had been revised from the preliminary report of 311,000. The number of weekly claims beat the Bloomberg consensus estimate of 300,000.

The four-week running average increased by some 4,750 to 300,750 this week.

Continuing jobless claims fell 49,000 to a seasonally adjusted 2.5 million. These continuing claims are reported with a one-week lag. We would point out that this is the lowest level that continuing jobless claims has hit since June 2007, long before the recession began.

As we have seen in most reports of late, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that there were no special factors impacting this week’s initial claims.

Stocks have remained firm after the report. S&P 500 futures were up three points and DJIA futures were up about 30 points. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was 2.43% on last look.

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Chris Lange

Chris Lange is a financial and geopolitical writer with more than a decade of experience covering a myriad of topics. He has published thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St., with past coverage focused heavily on stocks, IPOs, healthcare, defense, global affairs, and technology.

His work has been quoted, or referenced by a number of outlets including Business Insider, USA Today, Yahoo Finance, MSN, The Motley Fool, and many other publications. A graduate of Southwestern University, he studied business with a focus on investments and has previous experience in banking and startups.

When not reading or writing the news, he is following his passion for Lacrosse, playing chess, or building solar projects with his dad.

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