The Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in his speech today signaled that the Fed indeed is going to stimulate the US economy. Instead an expected weakness of the dollar we’ve seen slump of the euro. There was many reports from the US today and economic data was somewhat mixed. EUR/USD trades now at 1.3957 after jumping as high as 1.4156.
US retail sales expanded 0.6% in September, following a 0.7% (revise from 0.4%) growth in August. Forecasts were near actual figure, promising a 0.5% growth.
Consumer price index (CPI) increased 0.1% in September on a seasonally adjusted basis. The actual figure was lower than forecast (0.2%) and previous reading (0.3%).
NY Empire State Manufacturing index rose from 4.7 to 15.1 in October. Market participants expected much more moderate advance to 7.1.
Preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment dropped from 68.2 to 67.9 instead of rising to 68.8 as was expected.
Business inventories were up 0.6% in October, slightly more than the expected value of 0.5%. The previous reading was revised from 1.0% to 1.1%.
Treasury budget posted a deficit of $34.5 billion in September. This reading was far better than August value of $90.5 billion deficit but still somewhat worse than predicted $32.3 billion.
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