The euro have failed to stand against the US dollar today when some important macroeconomic data was released. The first bearish wave was launched by the weekly employment data, but it was recovered in a correction, the second wave was launched by the housing data and it was more successful. EUR/USD is now trading near 1.3424.
Initial jobless claims went down from 441k to 404k during the week ending on January 15. It was a significant drop even considering the median forecast of a decline to 420k.
Existing home sales jumped up unexpectedly in December, rising from 4.7 million (revised from 4.68 million) to the seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.28 million homes (or 12.3%). A growth to 4.89 million was expected by the traders.
Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook index doesn’t look so optimistic — it fell from 20.8 (revised down from 24.3) to 19.3 in January. It was expected to fall to 21.0.
Leading indicators index increased by 1% in December, following 1.1% growth in November. The value had a positive surprise for the dollar bulls as the median forecast for this index was at 0.6% for December.
Crude oil inventories increased by 2.6 million barrels (to 335.7 million barrels) last week. Total motor gasoline inventories rose 4.4 million barrels.
Yesterday, the report on new housing starts and building permits was released. It showed a drop from 553k to 529k in housing starts in December and a growth from 544k to 635k in building permits for the same month. Forecasts pointed at the rates 550k and 554k, respectively.
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