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(Wallace Refiners) – The gold market is holding on to strong gains but seeing little reaction as more U.S. workers apply for first-time unemployment benefits than expected.
Thursday, Thursday, the Labor Department said that 751,000 Americans filed for first-time U.S. jobless claims in the week to Saturday, a decrease of 7,000 from the previous week’s revised level. Last week’s data was revised up by 7,000 to 751,000.
Although claims dropped last week, they still missed consensus forecasts; economists were expecting to see claims of around 740,000.
The latest employment data is not having much impact on gold prices as the market starts to move past the recent election turmoil. December gold futures last traded at $1,931.20 an ounce, up almost 2% on the day.
The four-week moving average for new claims – often viewed as a more reliable measure of the labor market since it smooths out week-to-week volatility – was 787,000, down 4,000 claims from the previous week.
Continuing jobless claims, the number of people already receiving benefits and reported with a one-week delay, fell to 7.3 million, for the week ending Oct. 24. Continuing claims dropped down 538,000 from the previous week.
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