US housing starts jump to 1.093 million (annualized), a jump of 15.7%. Buildign permits leap to 1.052 million, much better than 1 million expected and a rise of 8.1%. Inflation comes out at 2%, core inflation at 1.9%, exactly as expected. .
Update: EUR/USD falls to a new 9 month low Before the publication, the dollar was doing well: EUR/USD traded around 1.3350, GBP/USD around 1.6635 and USD/JPY at 102.65. The good news from the housing sector helps the US dollar.
The US was expected to report a year over year inflation rate of 2% in July after 2.1% in June. Core CPI was expected to remain at 1.9%. Month over month, both were predicted to advance by 0.2%. Building permits were predicted to reach the round number of 1 million from 0.963 million (annualized) and housing starts to 0.97 million from 0.893 million in June. All previous figures are before revisions.
The housing numbers became more important after the Federal reserve put some emphasis on a cooling down in this sector. While the numbers remain volatile, the new highs are certainly encouraging and the trend remains positive.
These inflation numbers have recently become less important as the Fed focuses on the Core PCE Price Index and what’s even more important is wage inflation, aka Average Hourly Earnings, which stand at 2%.
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