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Initial Jobless Claims Increased Higher than Expected

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Wall Street opened mixed today, as the Fed signaled that it may raise the benchmark interest rates in late 2023, earlier than its previous forecast of 2024. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 witnessed a dip on the news. However, the Nasdaq Composite rose marginally since the central bank is yet to provide any time line for tapering as opposed to many financial experts' view of an immediate tapering of $120 billion per month bond purchase.

Meanwhile, weekly jobless claims rose higher than expected after six consecutive weeks of improvement. Initial claims rose to 412,000 for the week ended Jun 12 from a revised 375,000 in the prior week. The consensus estimate was 360,000. Weekly jobless claims rose above 400,000 for the first time since the week ended May 12.

Continuing claims — people who already received government unemployment benefit and run a week behind the headline number — came in at 3.518 million for the week ended Jun 5. This compares to a revised 3.517 million in the prior week.

On the other hand, the four-week moving average for new jobless claims fell 8,000 to 395,000. Likewise, the four-week moving average of continuing claims dropped 55,000 to a little over 3.6 million, its lowest since Mar 21, 2020. Moreover, total number of people receiving unemployment benefits across all types of government programs decreased to 14.8 million for the week ended May 29. This is nearly half a million reduction from the previous week.

On the earnings front, supermarket retailer The Kroger Co. (KR - Free Report) reported first quarter fiscal 2021 adjusted earnings per share of $1.99 surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.99. Software giant Adobe Inc. (ADBE - Free Report) will report its second-quarter fiscal 2021 earnings results after the closing bell.


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