Forex Blog

Today dollar continued its bearish trend against euro and pound, sliding down significantly after the consumer confidence release. Both EUR/USD and GBP/USD were going for correction after the better than expected PPI report, but started to return to their earlier positions in shortly after the Conference Board’s release.

Producer Price Index (PPI) gained 1.0% in February — a significant value for a one month change, after 0.3% fall in December and with only 0.4% gain forecasted for this month. Core PPI increased 0.4% — also higher than analysts’ forecast (0.2% growth).

Consumer confidence index in February dropped to 75.0 from 87.9 in January. That’s a rather horrible result — except of the period of Iraqi War in 2003, consumer confidence is now at its record low value since November 1993. Time to use the R-word again?

Good fundamental macroeconomic data that was coming out today helped the U.S. dollar to fight back some of the pips, lost to euro yesterday. EUR/USD began this day at 1.4779, but now it hovers near the 1.4756 level. It’s not a big gain for the greenback, but it has a potential to continue the trend during the rest of the week.

Durable goods orders in December unexpectedly rose by 5.2%, which is a lot higher than the 1.5% expected by the markets. This indicator has a strong influence on the U.S. economy and also the Forex market, so it can be a really positive news for dollar.

Consumer confidence surveyed by the Conference Board landed at 87.9 in January, after it was 90.6 in December (revised from 88.6). So, it really fell a just little down, but it’s still better than forecasted 87.0.

Despite the holidays period has already came to the U.S. and European markets, EUR/USD is rallying up fast for the second day in a row now. And if today there is plenty of fundamental news that can push euro up by almost 100 pips against U.S. dollar, yesterday’s bullish candle has no such reasons.

Today, the employment market of U.S. showed that it is suffering because of the subprime lending crisis too, initial jobless claims continue to grow - 349k against 340k expected, previous week value was also revised up from 346k to 348k.

November durable goods orders hadn’t met the hopes of the analysts that expected 2.2% growth, it was reported at 0.1% - though, still better than the October’s decline by 0.4%.

December Consumer confidence index reported by Conference Board was the only good indicator which came out in United States today - it grew up from 87.8 to 88.6.

Crude oil inventories fell during the week ending December 21 by 3.3 million barrels. And now Department of Energy says that at 293.6 million barrels they are in lower half of the average range for this time of year.

In November Consumer Confidence Index, surveyed by the Conference Board Inc., fell by 8.3 points to its lowest value since 2005. It decreased from 95.6 in October to 87.3 this month. Consumer confidence is the important measure of the consumers’ readiness to spend money and take credits. When this index falls so sharply, it usually means that U.S. economy is experiencing a slowdown or even a recession.

Contrary to the declining confidence index United States dollar strengthened its positions against many other currencies on the Forex market. EUR/USD fell by almost 50 points today. Signs of U.S. economy weakening began to worry OPEC and they promised to increase oil exporting volume, which caused oil prices to slide down. Decreasing oil prices in their turn caused a dollar uptrend.

With the consumer confidence surveyed in this September fall beneath the level of 1985 (from 105.6 to 99.8) the U.S. dollar can’t hold its position and loses almost 100 pips on EUR/USD rallying it to a new historical maximum at 1.4154.

While mortgage problems in U.S.A. continue to crush real estate sector throwing existing home sales to 5.5 millions in August (in July this number was 250,000 higher), consumer confidence - one of the main indicators of economy potential fall below any expectations by almost 6 points.

Considering the latest FOMC decision on interest rates it is not really hard to predict their reactions if today’s news releases will set a tendency for the next month, leaving Fed with bad macroeconomical data. Then another 0.50% can be cut by the end of 2007 and EUR/USD may pass 1.4500 level without a stop.

After breaking back above the 1.3700 mark EUR/USD fell below this level as the economic releases on inflation and consumer confidence were released today. Struggling below this level, if continued, may precede the new bearish trend in EUR/USD, while rallying and staying above will mean a return to a long-lasting EUR/USD bull trend.
Personal income and spending June numbers came out today close to the predicted values - 0.4% to 0.5% and 0.1% to 0.1% respectively. Core PCE inflation came out at 0.1% level - below the 0.2% predicted. This means that the inflation indicators are not high yet.
Chicago PMI - a major manufacturing index for the North-West region - decreased significantly from 60.2 to 53.4, while 58.5 was expected.
Construction spending numbers continue to warn the market about the crisis in realty sector showing a decrease of -0.3%, while analysts expected 0.2% growth.
Consumer confidence - the main surprise of a day which kept dollar below 1.3700 and stock markets high - came out at the 112.6 level (far above 105.4 expected) - at its highest value since 2001.

Today the preliminary consumers sentiment index (by University of Michigan) came out showing surprisingly good results - 92.4 against 86.0 expected - a historically high level of consumers confidence which indicates an uptrend the economy of United States. While consumer sentiment index is at its highest levels, dollar is suffering a continuous EUR/USD rally which showed a new maximum (for more than ten years period) at 1.3813 level today. Perhaps, strong macroeconomic indicators from U.S. prevented EUR/USD from keeping above 1.3800 mark, but it can be broken again at any time soon. Some other U.S. statistics became available today - business inventories growth in May increased from 0.4% to 0.5% (while a growth slowdown to 0.3% was expected). Advance monthly retail sales for June came out unexpectedly bad - falling down by 0.9% (they were expected to remain intact) - which is quite strange considering the high consumers sentiment index.

Forex seems to be ignoring todays macroeconomic data that came from United States - dollar is almost at the same level (slightly better even) as it was when the week started, a ranging week so far. New home sales disappointed U.S. optimists by showing a decline from 981,000 to 915,000 houses for May, it is even lower than experts expected - 925,000. Consumer confidence - one of the basic indicator of economical growth declined in June compared to May - 103.9 from 108.5, while it was expected to come just a little lower - 106.0. Such bad news for U.S. doesn’t add any optimism to USD bulls and can cause some further EUR/USD growth.

Euro showed a really fast and heart-breaking (for some traders at least) rally of 100 pips today before the major daily fundamental event - May Consumer Confidence Index. After hitting its resistance level at 1.3517 EUR/USD calmed down a bit rolling back to 1.3500 level. May Consumer Confidence Index which came out to be 108.0 against 104.5 expected ended Euro rally moving EUR/USD to 1.3475 level. Many other macroeconomic indicators are scheduled for this week, so Forex traders must be aware of possible rallies and rollbacks similar to those seen today.