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U.S. jobless claims marginally increase, indices decline
Initial jobless claims in the United States marginally rose on Thursday, ending a recent string of highs from several U.S. indices.
Figures released by the Labor Department showed that claims for unemployment benefits rose by 4,000, sending the total to 353,000 for the latest week.
How Jobless Claims affect the stock market
This comes, as markets were anticipating 350,000 applications for the week that ended August 21st.
After registering all-time highs for the last 2 trading days, both the NASDAQ and S&P 500 retreated from these levels.
EURUSD drops as German consumer confidence slows
The world’s most traded currency pair was trading lower on Thursday, as data from Germany showed that consumer confidence was slowing.
According to the Gfk index, Europe’s largest economy reported that consumer confidence fell from -0.4 to -1.2 in August.
How Consumer confidence affects the economy
This comes as analysts had forecasted a decline to -0.7, however with cases of the Delta variant rapidly spreading around the continent, consumers appear to be wary.
As such, the survey also showed that the propensity to save amongst consumers was rising.
EURUSD fell to an intraday low of 1.1745 as a result.
Yen weakens as Japan suspends Moderna vaccine
On Thursday, it was reported that Japan was suspending the distribution of close to 1.63 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
This comes as it was reported that there were signs of contaminants in some vials of the drugmaker’s product.
How does public health affect forex markets? Check out this article
Moderna confirmed that, “The company is investigating the reports and remains committed to working expeditiously with its partner (in Japan), Takeda, and regulators to address this”.
The Japanese Yen rose to its highest level against the US Dollar in the last 10-days on the news, as Japan continues to battle the spread of the virus.
USDJPY hit its recent resistance level of 110.225 in today’s session, before falling lower. Many now wait to see if rates could break this level.
Quote of the day – “If you personalize losses, you can’t trade.”
– Bruce Kovner
