Euro traded below its opening level against the U.S. dollar today as the fundamental reports in the United States were bad enough to raise the risk-aversion, but not bad enough to press on the greenback. In addition, the European Central Bank cut the interest rate from 2% to 1.5%, signaling that the further reductions are still possible. EUR/USD is now trading at 1.2536.
Nonfarm business productivity change for the fourth quarter of 2008 was revised from 3.2% to -0.4%; it was expected to be revised to 1.1%. The year-to-year change of 2.8% was left the same after revision.
Initial jobless claims were above 600k for the fifth week. Last week they were at 639k — thats 31k less than 670k reported for the previous week and slightly better than the forecast of 650k.
Factory orders fell for the sixth month in a row in January — by 4.5% — worse than in December (3.9% decline) and worse than the analysts expected (3.5% decline).
