Initial Claims increased to 484,000, for the week ending 04/10, beating the expected decrease to 437,000, after increasing to 460,000, the unrevised figure for the previous week. The 4-week moving average increased to 457,750, from the previous week’s unrevised average of 450,250. Seasonally adjusted insured unemployment from the prior week, ending on 04/03, was 4,639,000, an increase of 73,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,566,000. Seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate from the week ending on 04/03, was 3.6%, an increase of 0.1% from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 3.5%.
 
Net Foreign Purchases for February increased to $47.1 billion, following a January decrease of $15 billion, from $63.3 billion in December. Net foreign purchases of long-term U.S. securities were $51.4 billion, $52.5 billion of which were from private foreign investors and net purchases by foreign official institutions were negative $1.2 billion. U.S. residents purchased a net $4.2 billion of long-term foreign securities.
 
Industrial Production increased by 0.1% in March to an index value of 101.6 (2002=100), lower than the expected increase of 0.8%, following a 0.3% increase in February, revised from a 0.1% increase. Over the year, the industrial production index is up by 4.0%. Capacity Utilization was reported at 73.2%, an increase from the revised level of 73% for February, but 7.4 percentage points below its average for the period from 1972 through 2009. In March 2009, Capacity Utilization was measured at 69.5%.
 
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