The US consumer draws back in no time
Just as I was writing about the UK consumer being robust, the US durable goods orders data was published … It was good, better yet, it was excellent. The core durable goods Q3 GDP orders which exclude transport picked up by 1.5% against 0.4% expected. The durable goods orders overall increased by 4.4% in July against 3.4% expected.
These are really good numbers and the subcomponents are pretty good too. Apart from a slight decline in shipments which might weigh on the Q3 GDP, all the other subcomponents of the durable good orders were positive.
As always, the US consumer proved to be a driving force in the US and global economy, although this piece of economic data is quite volatile. the unemployment claims remain low and last week´s claims were fewer than what was expected.
All this goes in favour of our short term sell forex signal in EU/USD and our long term forex signals in the same forex pair as well as in GBP/USD. The USD found some bids immediately after the release, but has lost momentum now. The FED chair Yellen will be present at the Jackson Hole summit over the weekend, so there´s uncertainty among forex traders which is making them cautious at the moment, otherwise the USD would have gained a century of pips by now from this economic data release.