The euro slid against the US dollar following the Fed’s announcement of its interest rate decision today. Even before the news, EUR/USD has been trading with a bearish bias. After the release, the currency pair plummeted.
Durable goods orders fell sharply by 4% in June, following 2.8% decline in May (revised negatively from 2.2% drop). The median forecast was pointing at 1.4% decline. (Event A on the chart.)
Pending home sales went up by 0.2% in June — much better than the drop by 3.7% reported for May but worse than forecast of 1.2% gain. (Event B on the chart.)
US crude oil inventories increased by 1.7 million barrels during the week ending July 22. Last week saw a decrease by 2.3 million barrels. Forecast for today’s report was for a fall by 2 million barrels. Meanwhile, total motor gasoline inventories added 1.1 million barrels. (Event C on the chart.)
FOMC decided to leave interest rates on hold at 0.25%-0.50% as expected. (Event D on the chart.) The statement indicated more optimism than the one released during the last meeting in June:
Job gains were strong in June following weak growth in May. On balance, payrolls and other labor market indicators point to some increase in labor utilization in recent months. Household spending has been growing strongly but business fixed investment has been soft.
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