EUR/USD gained more than 100 pips today on the bad macroeconomic data coming out in U.S. This currency pair went up from 1.4714 at the opening of the Asian trading session to 1.4816 at the end of the New York session. GBP/USD also grew very fast today from 1.9420 to 1.9622. The major trend movement against the European currency happened after the release of the Philadelphia Feds business activity index, which showed a significant worsening of the business markets situation in U.S., while some definite improvements were expected. It fell from -20.9 to -24.0 (it was expected to increase to -10.0).
Among other important statistical releases that came out today was the initial jobless claims count for the last week it dropped down slightly from 358k to 349k (a drop to 345k was expected by the market traders) .
U.S. commercial crude oil inventories again grew sharply a gain of more than 4.2 million barrels was registered for the last week. Its the fifth straight weekly gain and almost every time it was far above 1 million barrels. This helped to keep the oil price below the “sacred” $100 level today.
