Thursday preview: US jobs market in focus

Investors' focus on Thursday will shift back to the US labour market and the latest weekly jobless claims figures.

Consensus expects data for the week ending on 28 March to reveal a further 3.75m increase in the number of first time claimants after a 3.283m surge during the prior week.

The four-week moving average meanwhile is seen jumping from 998,000 to 1.882m.

But Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics is anticipating a 5.5m person jump.

"Google Trends data indicate that the average daily number of searches for "file for unemployment" rose by 60% last week, compared to the week ended March 21," he said.

"If the relationship between the Google data and the claims numbers is linear—we have zero experience of claims at their current level, so this is a guess—it implies that claims jumped last week to more than 5,000K."

"The good news—relatively—is that we are increasingly confident that claims will start to fall in the current week, ending Saturday."

Thursday 02 April

INTERIMS

Tracsis

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Genus, South32 Limited (DI)

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Softcat, Thorpe (F.W.)

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Blackrock North American Income Trust , BMO UK High Income Trust , Primary Health Properties, SQN Secured Income Fund , Volta Finance Limited, Volta Finance Limited NPV (GBP)

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Hunters Property , Saga

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South32 Limited (DI)

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Billing Services Group Ltd., BMO UK High Income Trust B Shares, Life Settlement Assets, Life Settlement Assets, Life Settlement Assets

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Amiad Water Systems Ltd

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Amino Technologies, Banco Santander S.A., Gunsynd , Scottish American Inv Company, Wishbone Gold (DI)

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BBGI SICAV S.A. (DI), Blackrock Throgmorton Trust

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Chemring Group, CLS Holdings, Convatec Group , IMI, Impax Environmental Markets, Man Group, Melrose Industries, Mobius Investment Trust , Mondi, Moneysupermarket.com Group, Oakley Capital Investments Ltd. (DI), Old Mutual Limited NPV (DI), Phoenix Group Holdings , Quilter, Smith & Nephew, Standard Life Aberdeen, TP ICAP