Forex Blog

EUR/USD remains mostly unchanged today as the markets await the Federal Reserve decision on the interest rate. Even some important indicators that were released in U.S. today failed to move the currency pair significantly on Forex.

Advance data for the first quarter GDP in U.S. were releasd today, showing 0.6% growth (the same as in Q4 2007), above the estimate of 0.5%.

Chicago PMI index in April rose from 48.2 to 48.3, exceeding the pessimistic expectations, according to which it should have fallen to 47.5 this month.

Crude oil inventories rose 3.8 million barrels last week — more than 2.4 million previous week, but are still in the lower half of the average range for this time of the year.

EUR/USD turned to a mainly bearish trend after the GDP and unemployment statistics were released in U.S. today at 8:30 EST. Dollar went up from 1.5845 to 1.5750 dollars per euro.

The gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2007 gained 0.6% as was forecasted by the major market analysts and the previous GDP report. While the value is definitely low, it’s still above zero and it also held stable against the expectations of the possible revision.

Initial jobless claims last week decreased slightly — they went down from 375,000 (revised down from 378,000) to 366,000. The consensus expectation was at 371,000.

GDP release today in U.S. pushed dollar down after yesterday’s macroeconomic statistics and allowed EUR/USD to reach a new record at 1.5179. Meanwhile GBP/USD decelerated its pace a little and turned to a less bullish trend today.

The preliminary GDP data for the third quarter showed 0.6% growth — the same as it was in the advance release a month ago, but below the expected 0.8%. That’s quite a poor result for the U.S. economy, but still — not a recession.

Initial jobless claims last week were at 373,000 — a very high number even if compared to the previous 354,000. A small decrease to 350,000 was expected by the market strategists.

The main intrigue for today Forex trading session was the FOMC’s meeting at which the next interest rate should have been decided. As the most market participants expected FOMC lowered overnight interest rate in U.S. by 0.50% to 3.00%, farther widening the gap between U.S. and European interest rates. The decision was made under the pressure from the deepening crisis in the both housing and financial markets. EUR/USD jumped up by almost 100 pips after the release, showing that the dollar is going to be less attractive currency with the new 3% interest rate.

Another important statistics report came out today — it was the GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2007. It grew far worse than the analysts expected — 0.6% compared to forecasted 1.2%. Now the signs of recession given by the real estate sector, financial market and employment situation have got confirmed by the economy output.

U.S. dollar gained against other currencies today, showing a significant change in GBP/USD, along with a little less strong appreciation in EUR/USD. As no important positive data was released for USD, this growth may be accounted to the inertial buying of dollar and position closing on the previous good news and the loss of interest to carry trade.

Final numbers for GDP growth and GDP deflator in Q3 2007 were released today, but they didn’t change anything at all as they were known long before today. GDP growth remained the same - at 4.9%, a very high number for U.S. economy, GDP deflator was revised from 0.9% to 1.0% - an insignificant change.

Weekly report from the U.S. Department of Labor showed that initial jobless claims reached 346k - above the expected 335k and 12k above the previous 334k amount.

Leading indicators continued their decline in November - they fell by 0.4% - a slightly better then 0.5% dropdown in October, but worse than -0.3% that was expected by market analysts. On the bright side, leading indicators is not an important market parameter for Forex.

Philadelphia Fed November index disappointed dollar bulls with a -5.7 value, whereas October value was at 8.2 and a slight drop to 6.0 was expected by the market participants.

EUR/USD confirmed its downtrend intentions today falling from yesterday’s retracement to 1.4740 level. One of the reason for a stronger dollar can be seen in expectations for the increased real GDP growth in third quarter of 2007.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released its preliminary report on real Q3 Gross Domestic Product. The growth was higher than the previous advance value for third quarter - 4.9% against 3.8% and the same as analysts expected (that were quite optimistic with this indicator). As it was stated by Bureau, the growth was mainly caused by increased exports (thanks to a cheap dollar, I suppose).

Initial jobless claims report for the last week was opposite to GDP. In the week ending Nov. 24, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims was 352k. That is 23k above the previous revised (from 330k) value of 329k and expected 330k.

New home sales disappointed dollar and U.S. stocks bulls too. Annualized and seasonally adjusted October number was just 728,000 whereas at least 750,000 were expected. And September value was also revised down from 770,000 to 716,000.

Today is a very important day for the financial traders from all over the world - Fed is to decide its interest rate policy until the next meeting (if not further). While almost 92% of all traders expected rate cut by 25 basis points - to 4.50% - the main intrigue was concealed in Fed’s formulation and reasons for the cut (or its absence in case they would decide to leave things as they were). With one member voting against rate cut and words like “economic growth was solid in the third quarter” and that “some inflation risks remain”, it is now almost certain that this was the last rate decrease until the end of 2007.

To much surprise of the majority of Forex traders, U.S. macroeconomics data came out very optimistically tuned today. Starting from GDP (advance) at 3.9% in third quarter, which appeared greater than 3.1% expected; ending with September construction spendings which increased by 0.3% (against -0.2% fall in August and and -0.4% expected for that month).

On the bad side of the reports are Chicago PMI with a decrease from 54.2 to 49.7 and a big surprise present for oil bulls - another major drawdown in U.S. commerce crude oil inventories by almost 3.9 million barrels.

U.S. macroeconomical data releases get a little less overoptimistic while the subprime lending crisis takes its toll and the carry trade is uncertain. This is the second week after a major carry trade crisis when the major indicators of carry trade, like GBP/JPY and EUR/JPY, are trading flat without any signs of the future for this type of financial trading. But worser U.S. economical indicators hint for some major change in the global financial kitchen.
Global domestic product for the second quarter of the 2007 showed a big increase compared to first quarter (which has been a big disappointment) but still 0.1% lower of 4.1% expected.
Initial jobless claims for the previous week came out to be 334,000. Not only it is 14k higher than experts have been expecting, but it is also a record high number since the April of this year. This may lead to the lower August non-farm payrolls report and higher unemployment rate for that month.

EUR/USD dropped to its more than two weeks old minimum touching 1.3630 today while the market expected good data on GDP of United States for the seconds quarter of 2007. Breaking below 1.3230 for EUR/USD will mean a big trend breakout, but while it is traded higher a temporal correction should be considered.
U.S. GDP in Q2 2007 rose by 3.4% - a very good increase after 0.6% (revised from 0.7%) in Q1. It is also greater than expected number - 3.2%. Chain deflator for Q2 came out slightly lower than expected - 2.7% against 3.4% expected. Overall these are quite good results for the Q2. If U.S. economy can keep up with this pace in the second half of 2007, then it would add some more power to both stocks and Forex markets.
Today also Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July became available - 90.4 against 91.5 - lower than expected but still at a high level, showing a good sign for the U.S. economical health in general.

Today some important macroeconomic data came out in United States - final data on GDP and final chain deflator for the first quarter of the 2007. Though this data is very important for Forex markets its neutrality prevented any large affect on the market. GDP came out inside the expected borders - 0.7% which is by 0.1% better than previous value. Chain deflator was slightly higher than expected - 4.2% against 4.0%. Today data on initial jobless claims were also released - 313,000 against 315,00 expected - not much surprise here too. FOMC policy statement will be released today - maybe there will be something in it, that will move Forex market out if its flat condition.