After quite a lot of soft data, US pending home ales provide a nice surprise with a leap of 4.1%. A rise of 1.2% was expected after a drop of 0.5% initially reported for last month.
Last month’s figure was revised to a rise of 0.4%. This makes the fresh leap even more impressive. This is a relatively volatile index, but data looks good also on a yearly basis.
Earlier this week, new home sales came out at an annual pace of 328K, marginally higher than expected, but lower than last month (which was revised to the upside).
Jobless claims disappointed for the third week in a row, remaining at high ground, at 388K, higher than 375K that was predicted. Last month’s figure was 389K and it stood on 388K two weeks ago.
These numbers are significantly higher than 350-365K seen beforehand, and this is already a worrying trend and not a one time effect.
EUR/USD is ticking up slightly. This could be explained as risk appetite, but the move isn’t dramatic so far. The pair is still under downtrend resistance. USD/JPY shrugs off the data. The BOJ meeting is awaited.
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