The number of new home sales in the US rose to an annual level of 454K, beating expectations of 429K. The rise to 454K came on top of a significant upwards revision of the previous figure: from 417K to 444K.
The US dollar didn’t react with another surge: it seems to be tired of the recent rallies, and the correction continued. EUR/USD tops 1.29, GBP/USD is getting closer to 1.51 and AUD/USD reconquered the 0.97 line. USD/JPY has reasons of its own to move today.
While new home sales are only a small part of the home sales market, every new home sale triggers additional economic activity in construction of infrastructure and other things around it. The housing sector led the recent recovery, which hasn’t been seen in the same strength in other parts of the economy.
Earlier, the official house price index (HPI) in the US also surprised to the upside with a rise of 1.3%, better than 0.9% that was expected.
USD/JPY crashed earlier together with the Japanese stock exchange.
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