investingLive Americas market news wrap: Initial jobless claims tumble

• US initial jobless claims 191K versus 220K estimate
• Jobs survey from Revelio Labs sees 9K US job losses in November
• Freddie Mac: The 30 year mortgage rate falls to 6.19% from 6.23% last week
• The Atlanta Fed GDP tracker edges lower but it still shouldn’t be trusted
• US September factory orders +0.2% vs +0.5% expected
• Chicago Fed unemployment tracker 4.44% vs 4.46% prior
• US November Challenger layoffs 71.321k vs 153.074k prior

Markets:

• WTI crude oil 74-cents to $59.69
• US 10-year yields up 4.8 bps to 4.11%
• Gold up $2 to $4207
• S&P 500 flat at 6850.
• Bitcoin down 1.5%
• AUD leads, CHF lags

it was tough to find any real drama in the market today though it was certainly not dull. The initial jobless claims number tumbled, sending a contrasting view to some of the other employment numbers recently, including today. The obvious culprit was the US holiday and that likely skewed the picture so the data was quickly discounted after some USD volatility.

The dollar fell early in the day but bottomed into the London fix and steadily climbed from there. It was helped along by rising yields that were potentially driven by more talk that Hassett will be the Fed chairman pick. The euro and Swiss franc were particularly soft as the day wore on, though the moves were limited to 40 pips on the day.

Oil saw some life despite yesterday’s bearish supply data and a Saudi price cut. One driver was a report saying that a damaged terminal is limiting Kazakhstan’s oil output and another survey highlighting OPEC under-production of quotas. That led to a $1 intraday rally in crude.

Stock markets were choppy but in a tighter range. As the day winds down, the S&P 500 is trading close to flat having trade around 20 points on either side of unchanged. META was a big winner after scaling back investment plans in VR and the Metaverse.

This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.