The Fundamental FOREX Blog

On Thursday 09-03-09 at 8:30 AM ET, the USD Initial Jobless Claims and the Continuing Jobless Claims reports were released.

These two reports were the only economic reports released at that time, sometimes they are released with other reports.

The last time these two reports were released alone was on Thursday, 07-23-09 at 8:30 AM ET, click here for a review.

I did a preview of those two reports, click here to see how it was set up.

I also wrote a “preview” post on Wednesday, 09-02-09, click here for a review.

These 2 reports are released by the Department of Labor on a weekly basis.

I traded the EUR/JPY currency pair a couple minutes after the release of the 07-23-09 reports – check the review to see what happened, click here.

It appears that the Initial Claims has the greater impact on the currency market, but, politically, the Continuing Claims may cause some trading influence.

Here is what happened this week:

USD Initial Jobless Claims stats:

Previous = 570K revised = 574K

Forecast = 563K

Actual = 570K

The “actual” jobless claims came out more than the “forecast” by 7K, not good for the USD – but with the revised “previous” of 4K higher, the “actual” showed an improvement for the USD.

Continuing Jobless Claims stats:

Previous = 6133K revised = 6142K

Forecast = 6130K

Actual = 6234K

The “actual” continuing claims came out more than the “forecast” by 104K, not good for the USD – even with the revised “previous” of 9K higher, the “actual” did not show an improvement for the USD.

Both of these reports were not very good for the US economy, and the markets should have moved against the USD, but did not.

I did set up to trade the EUR/JPY if both reports come out in the same way – and both did.

I did not enter a trade since the Initial claims did not come out enough from the “forecast” for me to confidently enter a trade.

The cross currency pairs, EUR/JPY and GBP/JPY, barely made a move, the USD involved currency pairs either moved in favor of the USD or had very little movement at all.

My personal thoughts concerning less continuing jobless claims is that there are many jobless persons that have moved off of the rolls, not necessarily have they found jobs. They will probably be back on the rolls again in the near future.

Also, the summer jobs have come to an end, there may be higher claims in the future, at least for a few months prior to the Christmas Season.

The next USD-Unemployment Claims report is coming out on Thursday 09-10-09 at 8:30 AM ET. I should be posting a preview a day or 2 prior.

Keep this mind, past performances are not an indication of future results.

Stay tuned!