It's a small bit of good news. If the trend can continue for the entire month, that would obviously be much better news.
New claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week to a two-month low, while the trade deficit narrowed sharply in July, hopeful signs for the stuttering economic recovery.
Analysts said the reports on Thursday helped to calm fears growth was slowing sharply and implied the economy could soon pull out of a recent soft patch.
"We were expecting that things would slow down in the third quarter and start to pick up in the fourth quarter, but now it seems like the slowdown in the third quarter wasn't as severe as we feared," said David Sloan, an economist at 4CAST in New York.
