The dollar made up for its lackluster performance on Wednesday by taking back a good number of pips it had lost against its major counterparts. It stole 23 pips away from the yen while snatching 31 pips away from the euro. Let’s see if it’ll hold on to its gains today!
Although existing home sales data came in disappointingly, the dollar remained the king of the hill as the ECB’s decision to dish out big loans to European banks boosted demand for the safe haven currency.
Existing home sales fell short of expectations last month, registering an annualized number of homes sold of just 4.42 million rather than 5.04 million. To make matters worse, October’s 4.97 million figure was revised down to just 4.25 million. Ouch! We already knew the U.S. housing market was in bad condition… but apparently, it’s even worse than we thought!
At 1:30 pm GMT today, we’ll take a look at the latest unemployment claims data. Survey says that a total of 376,000 individuals filed for unemployment benefits last week, slightly up from the previous week’s 366,000 claims.
At the same time, the U.S. final GDP report will be due. No changes are expected to be made to the previous estimate which measured GDP growth at 2.0% last quarter. That being the case, the markets may react if we see a figure other than 2.0%.
Last but not least, at 2:55 pm GMT, the revised University of Michigan consumer sentiment report will be available. My homeboys say we’ll likely see an upward revision from 67.7 to 68.1.
Phew! With so many reports on tap, we could be in for another wild day! Just remember to practice smart risk management so you don’t get burned, playas!