The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending February 13 in the U.S. declined by 7,000 to 262,000 from 269,000 in the previous week.

Analysts had expected jobless claims to rise to 275,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 50th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims climbed by 30,000 to 2,273,000 in the week ended February 06.