"All in all, the labor market is gradually healing"
- Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics Inc.
The number of Americans claiming for unemployment benefits fell to 353,000 in the week ended July 21 from 388,000 the week before, said the Department of Labor on Thursday.
"All in all, the labor market is gradually healing," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
"We've got to take this report with a grain of salt. The jobs market is still tough and we're setting ourselves up for a soft second half of the year."
Also Thursday, a report showed durable goods orders excluding transportation dropped 1.1 per cent from May, the largest decline in five months.
U.S. stocks closed in green the same day. The Standard & Poor's 500 gained 1.65%, or 22.13 points, to 1,360.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1.67%, or 211.88 points, to 12,887.93. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.37%, or 39.01 points, to 2,893.25.
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