The United States dollar continues to fall after the Federal Reserve announced quantitative easing. EUR/USD presently trades at 1.4257 after the announcement dragged the USD down.

The US nonfarm business productivity increased at a 1.9 percent annual rate for 3Q10; the expected value was 0.9 percent while the second quarter value was revised from -0.9 percent to -1.8 percent. Moreover, initial jobless claims soared to 457k that highlighted an increase from the previous revised figure of 437k.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.4 percent for the week ending October 23, demonstrating a decrease of 0.1 percent point from last week's unrevised rate of 3.5 percent.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending October 16 were noticed in Puerto Rico (5.8 percent), Alaska (5.0), California (4.1), Oregon (4.1), Pennsylvania (4.1), New Jersey (3.9), Nevada (3.7), Connecticut (3.6), Wisconsin (3.6), Arkansas (3.5), and South Carolina (3.5).

There was also an increase of 7853 from the previous week to 45159 in context of former Federal civilian employees claiming UI benefits for the week ending October 16. The largest decreases in initial claims for the week ending October 23 were in Kentucky (-1,699), Florida (-1,615), Puerto Rico (-1,153), Indiana (-1,095), and Alabama (-1,087) while the largest increases were in California (+3,755), Illinois (+3,710), Pennsylvania (+2,256), Georgia (+1,593), and Michigan (+1,480).

Though the data suggested a slight downfall, things are expected to improve for the US economy in the next 5-9 months when the government is planning to introduce new fiscal measures to move the economy completely out of recession.