Although the U.S. trade balance deficit in January has actually widened compared to December’s revised value, it was significantly below the analysts’ expectations. The negative difference between the exported and imported goods’ value was at -$58.2 billion which is slightly above the December’s -$57.9 billion (revised up from -$58.8 billion). The trade balance deficit was expected to increase from $58.8 billion to $59.0 billion. The reason for the deficit "widening" was that the imports grew faster than the exports in January.

EUR/USD reacted sharply on the trade balance news release and went down from 1.5455 at the time before the release to about 1.5327 as of 14:22 GMT.