The bad news mount in the US. Consumer confidence dropped to 97.6 points in October from a downwards revised 102.6 in September. The miss joins poor durable goods orders.
Yet the dollar hangs on quite well with EUR/USD still depressed under resistance at 1.1070 and slipping to 1.1035.
GBP/USD is pressured towards support at 1.53 following its own shortcomings: UK GDP rose less than expected. USD/JPY is grinding lower towards the 120 magnet. USD/CAD is on a roll, also suffering from tumbling oil prices with USD/CAD rising to 1.3236.
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence measure was expected to remain around the 103 in October, just like in September.
Towards the release, the US dollar was looking stable, despite uninspiring figures.
Earlier, durable goods orders did not meet expectations. Headline orders dropped by 1.2%, just under expectations for a slide of 1.1%. In addition, this came on top of a downwards revision for August from 2.2% to 2.3%. Inventories were worrying as well.
Core orders, which reflect investment, fell by 0.4%. They were expected to remain flat. Also here, the previous month saw a downwards revision from 0% to -0.2%.
The S&P Case Shiller HPI rose by 5.1% y/y as expected. Markit’s flash services PMI slipped from 55.1 to 54.4 and also under the numbers that had been predicted. Among the negative figures, we find employment down to 52.7 from 54.9 beforehand. While ISM carries more weight than Markit in the US, it adds to the gloomy picture.
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