By: CNBC.com staff and wire
The weekly jobless claims number, which is closely watched as an indicator for employment trends, unexpectedly rose 1,000 to 428,000, well ahead of expectations of 411,000.
Applications for unemployment benefits continued to rise in the past week, while inflation pushed higher and a key manufacturing index weakened.
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The consumer price index, meanwhile, gained 0.4 percent when including volatile food and energy prices. The so-called core CPI, though, gained 0.2 percent, which was in line with expectations.
Other indicators from a major government data release this moring also were not not encouraging: New York manufacturing activity contracted in September for the fourth consecutive month.
Also, the US current account deficit narrowed unexpectedly to $118 billion in the second quarter from a revised $119.6 billion in the first quarter as exports hit a record high.
As a percentage of gross domestic product, the current account deficit—which measures the flow of goods, services and investments in and out of the US—narrowed to 3.1 percent in the second quarter from 3.2 percent in the first quarter.
Exports of goods and services rose to $716.7 billion, eclipsing the previous high set in the second quarter of 2008.
Economists had been expecting the current account gap to widen to $122.5 billion from a previously reported $119.3 billion.
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