According to the US Department of Labor, the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits for the week ended February 13, increased by 13 thousand compared with the revised figure of the previous week to 861 thousand applications. At the same time, analysts were expecting a decrease in the indicator by 28 thousand – to 765 thousand. What is even worse – the indicators of the previous week were revised upward by more than 50 thousand to 848 thousand. The number of secondary orders, which are counted one week behind the primary orders, also disappointed market participants. Secondary bids fell only slightly to 4.494 million from an upwardly revised 4.558 million. Analysts had expected 4.413 million.
