• MTS Economic News_20170224

    24 Feb 2017 | Economic News


• The dollar clawed back some ground on Friday after skidding to a two-week low against the yen, but was still on track for weekly losses after the Federal Reserve meeting minutes disappointed dollar bulls.

The greenback inched 0.1 percent higher to 112.73 yen JPY= but was just off a two-week low of 112.55plumbed overnight and down 0.3 percent for the week.

The euro was on track to shed 0.2 percent for the week against its U.S. counterpart, but was steady on the day at $1.0584 EUR=, well off this week's trough of $1.0494 hit on Wednesday, which was its lowest since Jan. 11.

• President Donald Trump on Thursday spoke favorably about a potentially export-boosting border adjustment tax being pushed by Republicans in the U.S. Congress, but did not specifically endorse it.

Trump, who has lashed out at U.S. companies who have moved operations to countries like Mexico, has previously sent mixed signals on the proposal at the heart of a Republican plan to overhaul the tax code for the first time in more than 30 years.

"It could lead to a lot more jobs in the United States," Trump told Reuters in an interview, using his most positive language to date on the proposal.

• President Donald Trump told chief executives of major U.S. companies on Thursday he plans to bring millions of jobs back to the United States, but offered no specific plan on how to reverse a decades-long decline in factory jobs.

• The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose slightly last week but the four-week average of such claims, considered a better gauge, fell to a 43-1/2-year low in a sign of a strengthening labor market.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 244,000 for the week ended Feb. 18, the Labor Department said. It was the 103rd straight week that claims remained below 300,000, a threshold associated with a healthy labor market.

• Oil prices rose but gains were pared Thursday after U.S. government data showed a seventh straight build in crude stocks, suggesting high inventories could undermine OPEC's move to cut output.

Benchmark Brent crude oil LCOc1 rose 81 cents a barrel to $56.65 by 11:30 a.m. EDT (1630 GMT) after touching a high of $57.26. U.S. light crude CLc1 traded up 75 cents at $54.34 a barrel after touching $54.94 a barrel.

Reference: Reuters, CNBC

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