US Consumer Confidence slides to 86 – USD follows

A series of disappointing US figures culminates with a big drop in consumer confidence: 86 points according to the  Conference Board. This is a significant fall compared to last month’s 92.4 and to expectations.

The dollar is retreating across the board, reversing some of the gains seen earlier: EUR/USD is around 1.2620, GBP/USD around 1.6220, USD/JPY at 109.50 and AUD/USD at 0.8725. Nevertheless, the falls are not significant.

US CB Consumer Confidence was expected to tick down from 92.4 to 92.2 points in  September, remaining around the post crisis highs.  Consumption is behind the vast majority of the US economy, and confidence is considered to reflect future retail sales, although the correlation is not always clear.

The US dollar continued advancing, albeit not in a linear fashion and was actually sliding just before the publication. EUR/USD traded around 1.2620, USD/JPY 109.60, GBP/USD around 1.6220 and AUD/USD around 0.8735.

Earlier, the  S&P/CS Composite-20 HPI rose by 6.7% annualized, less than 7.5% expected and printed a fall on a monthly basis. However, there was a change in methodology here, so the numbers may be skewed.

The Chicago PMI for the month of September also fell short of expectations with a drop from 64.3 to 60.5 points, below 61.6 expected.

In the European session, EUR/USD fell to a 2 year low of 1.2570,  completely  destroying support at 1.2660.