Once again Greece’s economic situation influenced the EUR/USD currency pair setting it down after several days of gains for the European common currency. Even if the U.S. didn’t provide positive data today, the euro remained less attractive as ECB officials and Angela Merkel showed concern regarding Greece’s raising budget deficit, which could, according to them, affect the euro’s performance. EUR/USD currently trades at 1.4476, erasing all of yesterday’s gains fort he euro.
Retail sales posted negative figures for December, decreasing 0.3%. It was a sharp fall from November’s revised increase of 1.8%. Forecasts were frustrated as they expected an timid but positive advance of 0.4%.
Initial jobless claims rose during the past week to 444k applications, compared to a previous revised number of 433k two weeks ago, and also above forecasts that expected 438k jobless claims.
U.S. export prices advanced 0.6% percent in December while import prices remained neutral in a monthly comparison. Both import and export prices increased in 2009 at 8.6% and 3.4% respectively.
Business inventories increased by 0.4% in November from a revised rise of 0.4% in October. Forecasts once again missed out excepting more optimistic numbers, signaling an increase of just 0.1%.
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