This afternoon at 1:30 p.m. we are looking to the announcement of the U.S. Unemployment Clams numbers, released by the U.S. Department of Labour on Thursdays, just prior to the U.S. market open.

This indicator represents the number of claimants of the unemployment insurance for the first time within last week.

Jobless Claims report is one of the lagging indicators and have an indirect effect on the economic growth. As employment figures and consumer spending are correlated, the statistics will provide the overview into whenever the economic conditions in the U.S. are improving.

Initial jobless claims have a big impact on financial markets because unlike continued claims data which measures the number of persons claiming unemployment benefits, initial jobless claims measures new and emerging unemployment and provides a measure of strength in the US labor market.

Lower than expected number of Unemployment Claims will usually have a positive effect on the U.S. currency. The forecasted value for today’s release stands at 284.000, comparing to the previous 297.000 number.

Lately, we have seen American economy gaining strengths with all the quantitative easing programs having ended and flowing expectation for the interest rise, which is expected to happen by the end of this year.