Industrial Production Disappoints Dollar Bulls

EUR/USD went down today after showing a high level of volatility during the first half of the early trading session. The major driver for the currency pair’s fall was the poor data on March industrial production in the United States. The indicator stalled for the second month in a row.
Building permits rose from the seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 715k (revised down from 717k) to 747k in March, which is also significantly above the March 2011 level of 574k; the expected rate was 710k. US housing starts fell to 654k down from 694k (revised negatively from 698k) during the same month. They were expected to rise to 705k. (Event A on the chart.)
Industrial production remained unchanged March, following the same stagnation registered in February. The traders anticipated the indicator to grow by 0.3%. Capacity utilization fell from 78.7% to 78.6%, which was slightly better than the forecasted fall to 78.5%. (Event B on the chart.)


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