Initial Jobless Claims issued by the US Department of Labor is a typical report on the number of jobless individual who file for the unemployment to receive state jobless benefit in the US which is posted on Thursday every week. It provides a measure of strength in the labor market. The reduction in the number of unemployed people shows the consumer spending is highly correlated with labor-market conditions. There is a high correlation between the jobless claims and the economic condition of a country. As jobless claims increases, the economy weakens thus depreciating its currency and vice-versa.

As the US economy is the largest economy in the world and US Dollar being the globally accepted and preferred currency for trading, the economic condition of the US and its impact on the US dollar are faced by the whole world as most of the global currencies are linked with the US Dollar. Also, the US Dollar and gold prices have high correlation with each other the appreciation of the US Dollar raises the price of gold and vice-versa.

Though there are a varieties of other indices such as consumer sentiments viz. Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) and Consumer Sentiment Index; Business Spending i.e. Purchasing Managers Index (PMI); GDP, new housing starts and other indicators, the jobless claims do have its own high level of impact on the financial markets and especially to the commodity market.

The data published on Thursday, September 9 showed that the US jobless claims dropped down to the lowest since 2006, to the burning 292000 last week below the estimate of 332000 but was due to the technical issues in counting claims caused by computer-network conversions in the two states. The 4-week average, which is a less volatile gauge of unemployment claims, dropped to 321000. With the jobless claim report, the bullion for gold dropped by 1%, gold future for December delivery dropped 2.4% on COMEX and as a whole dropped by 3.2% yesterday.

Though the technical errors has shown reduced claims, the other indicators on Tuesday- JOLTS Job Openings was weak and Non-Farm Payrolls was below the estimate. The unemployment rate dropped from 7.4% to 7.3% showing the insignificant change in the labor market. The not improving condition of the labor force has reduced the confidence among investors causing the US Dollar to depreciate. This has downturned the investment in gold as a safe haven.