May Day resulted in some unexpectedly bad fundamental data releases from the United States. Labor market, income, spendings, construction and manufacturing were covered in todays reports and none of them showed something optimistic for the dollar bulls; nevertheless EUR/USD was down today and the dollar managed to show some unfounded strength on the Forex market.
Initial jobless claims rose up from 345k (also revised up from 342k) to 380k last week, showing a further decline in employment.
Personal income rose 0.3% in March, while personal spending was up 0.4%. And, while spending was above the expected 0.2% growth, income growth was below the expectation of 0.4% growth last month.
Construction spending in March decreased faster than the analysts expected it was down by 1.1% compared to February, while a 0.7% drop was expected.
ISM manufacturing index was reported to be unchanged at 48.6% in April better than the expected drop to 48.0%.
