Unemployment

applications rise

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose modestly last week, but remains at healthy levels Jobless claims rose by 4,000 to 232,000 for the week of Aug. 17, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the weekly gyrations, ticked down by 750 to 236,000. For the week ending Aug. 10, 1.86 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits, 4,000 more than the week before. Weekly filings for unemployment benefits, which are a proxy for layoffs, remain low by historic standards.

Home sales end

4-month slide

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes ended a four-month slide in July. That came as easing mortgage rates and a pickup in properties on the market encouraged home shoppers. The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that existing home sales rose 1.3% last month from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.95 million. According to FactSet, the latest sales came in slightly higher than the 3.92 million pace economists were expecting. Sales fell 2.5% compared with July last year. 

Peloton shares

surge in Q2

Peloton Interactive Inc. shares surged the most in 18 months after the fitness company reported earnings that beat analysts’ estimates, signaling that turnaround efforts are starting to bear fruit. New York-based Peloton managed to eke out revenue growth in the three months ended June 30, with sales of $644 million, according to a statement Thursday. That was up less than 1% from a year earlier, but easily beat the average Wall Street estimate of $630.1 million.

Canada to keep

freight rail rolling

The Canadian government has ordered the country’s two major freight railroads to enter binding arbitration. Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon announced the decision at a news conference Thursday, moments after The Associated Press broke the news publicly. The railroads have said that once the dispute enters arbitration the trains will be able to get moving again. But it wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the union’s engineers, conductors and dispatchers will return to work. 

Amazon antitrust

suit to proceed

A federal appeals court has revived an antitrust lawsuit the District of Columbia brought against Amazon. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that a local Superior Court judge set too high a bar for the complaint before granting Amazon’s motion to dismiss the case. The lawsuit, filed in 2021, accused Amazon of anticompetitive practices in its treatment of third-party sellers, which facilitate most of the sales made through the retail giant’s online shopping platform. An Amazon spokesperson says the company looks forward to rebutting the district’s claims in court.

— Bulletin wire reports