The dollar’s currency hiney got whooped by most of its counterparts last Friday. It lost 21 pips to the euro when EUR/USD closed at 1.4250 and 57 pips to the pound as GBP/USD ended the week at 1.6279.
In this humble, not-so-old man’s opinion, the mixed data that we saw from the U.S. must have not impressed investors.
The retail sales report for July topped expectations when both the core and headline figures came in at 0.5% versus the forecasts which were at 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively. However, the preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment report for August plunged to its 30-year low at 54.9 and disappointed market consensus which was for a very modest pullback to 63.2 following July’s reading at 63.7.
Sure, the dollar’s scorecard wasn’t all that bad since it was able to gain against the Swissy and the Loonie. But I think it just got lucky that it’s counterparts had their own problems to deal with too.
Our forex calendar has a couple of reports listed for today so make sure you ain’t snoozin’ when they’re released later if you want to make some moolah.
At 12:30 pm GMT, we’ll get dibs on what businessmen think about the business conditions in New York with the Empire State Manufacturing Index for August. After contracting in July, printing at -3.8, analysts are expecting the report to show some optimism with the forecast up at 0.8.
A few minutes later at 1:00 pm GMT, the TIC report will be released. If you’re planning to buy the dollar, you may want to keep your fingers crossed for a figure better than 30.4 billion USD. This would be bullish for the currency as this would indicate that bigger foreign investment during the month.
Come 2:00 pm GMT, the NAHB will release it’s survey on house prices. Keep in mind that the consensus is for the outlook by home builders to have remained steady with the forecast still at 15.0.