The US dollar was very weak today, surprisingly so considering very good domestic macroeconomic data. While the greenback managed to retain some of its gains versus the euro, the US currency fell against many other major rivals.
The US Census Bureau reported that durable goods orders climbed by 11.2% in July. That is a far bigger increase than 4.4% predicted by specialists and a higher rate than 7.6% registered in the preceding month. Some market analysts attempted to explain the weakness of the greenback despite the good report by the fact core durable goods orders (those that exclude volatile orders for aircraft) rose by 2.4%, slower than in the previous month — by 3.6%. But the actual reading was still better than the market consensus of 1.9%.
Tomorrow, the first revision for US gross domestic product in the second quarter will come out, showing how bad exactly was the devastation caused to the US economy by the coronavirus pandemic. Analysts predicted ahead of the release that the slump of 32.9% registered in the advance estimate will get a marginal revision to 32.5%.
What is considered by many experts to be even more important to markets is tomorrow’s speech of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole symposium. It is titled “Monetary Policy Framework Review” and is scheduled for 13:10 GMT.
EUR/USD was at about 1.1824 as of 15:47 GMT today after opening at 1.1834 and falling to the daily low of 1.1772. USD/JPY dropped from 106.37 to 106.11, retreating from the session maximum of 106.56. AUD/USD gained from 0.7194 to 0.7227.
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