US: Weekly Initial Jobless Claims rise to 251K vs. 240K expected

• Initial Jobless Claims rose by 7,000 in the week ending July 16.
• US Dollar Index stays on the back foot following earlier recovery.

There were 251,000 initial jobless claims in the week ending July 16, the weekly data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) showed on Thursday. This print followed the previous week's print of 244,000 and came in worse than the market expectation of 240,000.

Further details of the publication revealed that the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1% and the 4-week moving average was 240,500, an increase of 4,500 from the previous week's revised average.

"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending July 9 was 1,384,000, an increase of 51,000 from the previous week's revised level," the DOL's publication further read.

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index stays on the back foot in the early American session and was last seen losing 0.44% on the day at 106.58.