The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment insurance unexpectedly rose to its highest level in close to six months, a fresh signal of a weak jobs market.
The number of new claims for jobless benefits rose 2,000 to 484,000 in the week ended August 7, the second straight increase, Labor Department data showed on Thursday.
"This is not a good number," said John Brady, an analyst at MF Global in Chicago. "Claims are going the wrong way. That has the market concerned."
The data comes two days after the Federal Reserve downgraded its assessment of the economy's health and said it would take steps to ensure its support for the fragile economic recovery does not wane.
U.S. stock index futures added to losses, while U.S. Treasury debt prices pared losses following the data. The jobless claims data is the latest in a series of releases which indicate the pace of the economic recovery is slowing.
Economists have been ratcheting down estimates for second-quarter economic growth after data on trade and inventories for June suggested it was not as strong as earlier thought.
The government estimated last month the economy advanced at a 2.4 percent annualized pace in the April-June quarter, far more slowly than the 3.7 percent pace of the first quarter, and now some economists believe the economy may have grown at less than half that rate.
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