EUR/USD fell today, driven down by a range of factors, solid US economic data released over the current session being one of them. Yesterday, the currency pair rose for the fourth consecutive trading session as FOMC meeting minutes came out unexpectedly dovish, though most market participants continued to anticipate a December rate hike.
PPI rose 0.4% in September, exactly as analysts predicted, after rising 0.2% in August. (Event A on the chart.)
Initial jobless claims dropped from 258k to 243k last week, below the median forecast of 251k. (Event A on the chart.)
Crude oil inventories shrank by 2.8 million barrels last week but remained near the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. That is compared to the consensus forecast of a 1.9 million drop and the previous week’s huge drop of 6.0 million. At the same time, total motor gasoline inventories increased by 2.5 million barrels and were in the upper half of the average range. (Event B on the chart.)
Yesterday, minutes of the September FOMC meeting were released, showing that US policy makers were concerned that factors making inflation low are not just temporary, and some of the FOMC members believed that it is a good idea to postpone an interest rate hike before economic data shows more solid growth of consumer prices. (Not shown on the chart.)
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