The euro fell against the US dollar as well as some other major currencies after the release of a slew of macroeconomic reports in Europe today. Market experts attributed the euro’s decline to the weaker-than-expected inflation data. Unemployment reports, on the other hand, were surprisingly good.
German retail sales rose 0.5% in August from the previous month, matching expectations. The drop in July got a significant positive revision to 0.8% from 2.2%. The Consumer Price Index was unchanged in September from the previous month after falling 0.2% in August. Year-on-year, the index rose 1.2%, whereas analysts were expecting the same 1.4% rate of growth as in the preceding month. The seasonally adjusted number of unemployed people dropped by 10,000 in September from the previous month after rising by 2,000 in August. That is instead of the predicted increase by 5,000.
Turning to Italy, the preliminary estimate of the CPI showed a drop of 0.5% in September, which was bigger than 0.3% predicted by economists. Furthermore, the August increase got a negative revision from 0.5% to 0.4%. Year-on-year, the index rose 0.4%, the same as in the previous month. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate decreased to 9.5% in August from the positively revised figure of 9.8% in July instead of rising to 9.9% as experts had predicted.
The Spanish flash CPI rose just 0.1% in September from a year ago, whereas market participants were counting on the same 0.3% rate of growth as in August. The index showed no change on a monthly basis.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the whole eurozone provided a positive surprise, falling to 7.4% in August from 7.5% in July. Specialists were not expecting any change.
EUR/USD declined from 1.0940 to 1.0903 as of 17:18 GMT today, and its daily low of 1.0885 was the lowest since May 2017. EUR/GBP was down from 0.8891 to 0.8874 but rebounded from the session minimum of 0.8831. EUR/JPY slipped from 118.10 to 117.91 but bounced from the session low of 117.54. At the same time, EUR/CHF surged from 1.0837 to 1.0883.
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