XRP Slips to $1.33 After US Labor Department Reports 194,000 Jobless Claims

Claims Fall to 194,000

The US Department of Labor put initial jobless claims at 194,000 in its Thursday release, a 6,000 drop for the week ended October 17 and comfortably under the 200,000 that economists had penciled in. The print pulls layoffs close to their lowest level in 57 years: weekly claims are now approaching the 189,000 recorded in July, the smallest reading since 1969. On this evidence, employers remain reluctant to cut staff even with hiring conditions visibly weaker than they were over the summer. It is a labor market where firms are neither hiring aggressively nor cutting headcount in size, as economists have described it.

The rest of the report was less one-sided. The four-week moving average of new applications slipped 1,000 to 197,750, while continuing claims, a count of people already drawing benefits, rose by 25,000 to 1.728 million in the prior week. The insured unemployment rate held unchanged at 1.1%, a sign that people who do lose work are not staying jobless much longer than before.

Risk assets took the print with little urgency. The XRP price slipped to about $1.33, according to COINOTAG's live monitoring, down from roughly $1.36 earlier on Thursday and 2.3% lower across the past 24 hours, extending a retreat from roughly $1.49 at the start of October. Bitcoin sat near $84,200, still short of the $85,000 level where analysts had flagged an accumulation of more than $2 billion in potential short liquidation liquidity. The same hesitation runs through the wider altcoin market, where large-cap tokens have drifted sideways to lower through October while investors wait on policy.

Fed Decision Looms for XRP

The claims series was the last significant labor reading before the Federal Reserve's October 27 and 28 meeting, where policymakers are expected to leave the target range unchanged at 3.75% to 4.00%. Pricing in fed funds futures and the economist consensus point the same way for October, with a 25 basis point hike expected in December should inflation stay elevated amid the conflict involving Iran. Higher borrowing costs tend to drain appetite for speculative assets, since richer risk-free yields raise the bar for returns that sit years out.

The labor backdrop behind that expectation is unusual. September's employment report showed the US economy added just 29,000 jobs, down from 133,000 in August, while unemployment held at 4.2%. That is why the weekly claims series draws the attention it does: it is the freshest evidence on which side of the ledger gives way first.

For XRP, the tape has been pressing the lower end of its range. The token trades below its 50-day moving average near $1.41, with a daily relative strength index around 42, and the support and resistance map frames the fight plainly: a push above $1.38 to $1.41 opens $1.50 and $1.55, while losing $1.33 exposes the 200-day average near $1.28. A widely followed reading of the $1.33 test makes the same point: the level decides whether $1.50 comes into play or the lower levels take over. Our XRP technical analysis tracks those levels as they move.

Corporate and protocol work has continued in the background. Evernorth completed its merger ahead of an October 12 Nasdaq debut and reported holdings of roughly 473 million XRP, and the XRP Ledger activated its BatchV1_1 amendment on October 9, permitting up to eight transactions to settle in a single batch. Faster-settlement work has moved in parallel, including the 3-5 second settlement that Ripple and the XRP Ledger Foundation highlighted in a recent guide.

A $1.33 Test Before October 28

COINOTAG's own aggregate data frames the stakes. The Fear & Greed Index sits at 68, deep in greed, tracked market capitalization stands near $2.42 trillion, and Bitcoin holds a 68% share of our tracked universe. Sentiment that optimistic, with XRP pinned on its first downside level, leaves little cushion if the December hike risk firms up. Bolder targets, such as the analyst call for XRP at $4 by November 30 from $1.39, need that macro turn to come through first. The claims print settles nothing on its own; the October 28 decision will. Until then, $1.33 is the level XRP has to defend.