Sales of new homes in the US rose to 389K. A rise from 373K to 386K (before revision) was expected. Update: last month’s number was now revised to the downside: 368K. So, this is a rise of 5.7% from the previous month.
USD/JPY and EUR/USD are rising initially, but the moves are limited. Update: EUR/USD is now ticking lower.
The US housing sector has been outperforming other sectors. Sales of new homes are only a small part of the market, but they usually trigger significant economic activity around the construction of the new homes, neighborhoods, etc.
Building permits and housing starts stood out with big advances in recent months. Sales of existing homes were less volatile.
Manufacturing remains the weaker link of the US economy. The Flash Manufacturing PMI showed another month of slow growth, with a score of 51.3 – not too far from the 50 point mark separating growth from contraction.
EUR/USD was hit earlier by weaker German data, but later recovered on reports of an agreement between Greece the troika.
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