Initial Claims Worse Than Expected, Futures Higher

The initial claims data for August 20 was just released, and it came in higher than expected. For the week ending August 20, initial claims rose to 417,000. Expectations were for 405,000. Last week was revised to 412,000. Continuing claims fell to 3.641 million, versus estimates of 3.7 million. The Bureau of Labor said that this weeks claims were adjusted higher by 8,500 due to the Verizon VZ strike. Dow futures are up 12 points, NASDAQ futures are off 7 points, and S&P 500 futures are up 0.9 points.