This is a bit confusing situation for the financial markets, since the good economical data from United States should empower USD causing EUR/USD to fall, but today good data on labor productivity and ISM services index caused EUR/USD to soar. This can be explained by the increased optimism in the U.S. economy which causes more big traders to continue carry trading, during which USD is in a downtrend.
U.S. crude oil inventories in the past week fell (again) by 3.9 billion barrels, but still remain at a high level for the current seasonal average. One of the possible reasons for this decrease can lie in a hurricane season (which is quite weak in this year so far).
Initial jobless claims in the past week dropped to 318,000 compared to 337,000 previous week, which while still a high number is better than 330,000 expected by the market. But the more important employment data — nonfarm payrolls for August, will come out tomorrow.
ISM services index (business activity) in August came out at 55.8 level — the same as the month before. This is a good level for this index, especially when analysts predicted its fall to 54.5.
Nonfarm productivity in second quarter of 2007 (revised value) increased by 2.6%. This growth exceeded both the market expectations (2.4%) and the Q1 value (1.8%). High productivity in the nonfarm area is a good sign for the U.S. economy, which by the end of 2007 can show a very strong growth.
