Forex Blog

EUR/USD slid to its minimum value since April 14 today on Forex — 1.5675, as the investors started to consider the U.S. currency to be oversold and the further interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve — unlikely. Fundamental data that was released today in U.S. was mostly disappointing, but that didn’t help the euro to grow against the dollar.

Initial jobless claims dropped 33k last week — from 375k (revised up from 372k) to 342k, which is below the expected 375k.

Durable goods orders decreased 0.3% in March, while February’s change was revised from -1.5% to -0.9%. The market analysts expected the orders amount not to change in March.

New home sales in United States dropped to 526k in March (annual rate) from 575k in February (revised down from 590k) — below 580k forecast.

EUR/USD gained more than 100 pips today as it continued to grow on Forex before and after the fundamental news releases in U.S. Some of those releases were rather neutral, while one was particularly bad. Although EUR/USD descended from its historical maximums it is now starting to return to the bullish trend.

Durable goods orders in February dropped 1.7%, while a growth of about 0.8% was expected. It followed the 4.7% drop in January.

New home sales in U.S. were at 590,000 in February — they dropped compared to January’s revised value (601,000) , but were both above the expected 580,000 and above the unrevised January’s 588,000.

Crude oil inventories remained unchanged during the last week in U.S. The stagnation followed a very small positive change by 0.1 million barrels in previous week.

Today EUR/USD reached its new historical maximum at 1.5105 as the dollar continued to weaken both on the rates cut expectations and later - bad macroeconomic data releases in U.S.

Durable goods orders - a very important indicator of the business’s health - decreased 5.0% in January, more than the expected drop of 0.4%.

New home sales in January fell to 588,000 annualized rate - below the December’s 605,000 and forecasted January value of 600,000.

Crude oil inventories last week again showed a very strong gain - 3.2 million barrels. But nevertheless oil prices continue to break all maximums.

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.

EUR/USD seemed almost completely independent of the important fundamental indicators which were signaling the worsening economical situation in USA. EUR/USD was falling by more than 100 pips during the day, but then it returned to a more moderate loss - 50 pips.

Manufacturers’ durable goods orders in October 2007 decreased by $0.9 billion which is 0.4% the previous month value. The consensus forecast for this value was at 0%, meaning that the orders shouldn’t been changing at all.

National Association of Realtors announced its October existing home sales number - 4.97 million annualized, well below both 5.03 million in September and 5.00 expected for October.

Crude oil inventories reported by the U.S. Department of Energy from November 16 to November 23 declined by 0.4 million barrels, showing another week without an increase, which is so needed after some major inventories downfall several weeks ago.

The closer it is to the October 31st when the FOMC’s meeting on interest rates policy will be held the stronger the dollar bears feel themselves on the Forex market. With almost each day bringing new reasons for the Fed to decrease interest rate again this time the decision became clear now.

Initial jobless claims for the last week decreased compared to the previous week report, but still came out worse than expected - 331k compared to 339k previous week and 320k expected.

Durable goods orders by the manufacturers, according to U.S. Census Bureau, in September decreased by $3.8 billion or 1.7%, while previous value was revised from 4.9% (also decrease) to 5.3%. Now, considering that the markets were expecting increase by 1.5%, it is possible to say that manufacturing sector is suffering or at least is going to suffer something close to a crisis.

September new home sales increased a little from August number - 770k against 735k (but August value was revised from 795k) and they were still lower than expectations. But real estate sector is already known to be in downfall. So, at least for me nothing surprising here.

Today EUR/USD was ranging between 1.3690 and 1.3770 marks retracing a half of the yesterday’s dollar rally. U.S. economy had some bad news for dollar bulls with only one bad for Euro bulls.
Manufactured durable goods orders in June increased by only 1.4% which was much lower the expected number - 2.0%, but still better than May result of decline in 2.8%.
Initial jobless claims for the last week surprisingly came out at the 301,000 level, slightly below the 310,000 number which was predicted by financial experts. Being the only positive news for the day, job market is still doing quite well, especially comparing to realty market.
Help-wanted advertising index isn’t a very influential indicator of the economy growth but its decline to 26 (its staying at 27 was expected) can be an early sign for some problems on the U.S. employment market.
New homes sales in June dropped significantly from 893K (revised from 915K) to 834K units, continuing the series of bad news from the real estate sector of economy.