Economic Roundup - UK Retail Sales gain, Swiss trade balance holds steady, CAD CPI rises. | CountingPips Forex Blog

August 21, 2008 - Forex Economic News

Economic Roundup - UK Retail Sales gain, Swiss trade balance holds steady, CAD CPI rises.

Retail Sales data was released today out of the United Kingdom and showed that retail sales rebounded in July and surpassed economic forecasts. The UK retail sales data, released by National Statistics, increased by 0.8 percent in July following a decrease of 3.9 percent in June. July's annual rate of change showed an increase of 2.1 percent over last year which Global Fx Trading was slightly below June's annual increase of 2.2 percent. Market forecasts had expected a decrease of 0.2 percent in July's monthly retail sales and a 1.8 percent annual increase. Contributing to the increase in retail sales was a gain of 1.3 percent in non-food stores and an increase of 0.3 percent of sales in food stores for the month.

Swiss trade shows surplus. Producer and import prices rise.

Economic news out of Switzerland today showed that the Swiss Trade Balance held steady in the month of July. The Swiss trade balance, released by the Federal Customs Office, showed that July had a virtually identical trade surplus as June at 2.37 billion Swiss francs. The surplus beat economic forecasts expecting a trade surplus of 2.00 billion francs. Nominal exports for the month increased by 9.7 percent while imports increased by 5.6 percent. Annual exports increased by 4.3 percent in July from July 2007.

Producer prices rose faster than expected out of Switzerland in July according to the Federal Statistical Office. Swiss producer and import prices rose by 0.5 percent in July and rose by 4.9 percent on an annual basis. Economic forecasts had predicted that monthly prices would rise by 0.3 percent and annual prices would rise by 4.6 percent. June's monthly increase registered a 0.6 percent gain while on an annual basis June's increase was 4.5 percent.

Canadian consumer prices increase.

Consumer Prices in Canada increased by 0.3 percent in July according to a report released today by the Statistics Canada. The July Consumer Price Index gain of 0.3 percent was below market forecasts which were predicting a 0.4 percent rise and follows a 0.7 percent rise in June. Compared to July of last year, consumer prices were 3.4 percent higher. Consumer prices excluding gasoline increased by an annual rate of 2.1 percent following a 1.8 percent annual rise in June. Gasoline prices have increased by 28.6 percent from July 2007 to July 2008.

US weekly jobless claims fall.

Weekly U.S. jobless claims decreased in the week that ended on August 16th according to the U.S. Labor Department today. Weekly jobless claims fell by 13,000 from the week prior to total 432,000 unemployed workers. A 4-week moving average rose by 7,250 from the prior week to 375,250 unemployed workers.

Workers continuing claims for unemployment benefits for the week ending August 9th fell by 17,000 workers to 3,362,000 unemployed workers. A four week moving average of continuing claims increased by 66,250 from the prior week to 3,330,250. The prior week's moving average registered 3,264,000.

US Dollar falls in Forex Trading.

The U.S. dollar has lost ground today in the forex market against most of the major currencies. The euro has increased against the dollar today from the open at approximately 1.4773 dollars per euro to trading late in the U.S. afternoon at 1.4873. The British pound has also increased verses the dollar today to trading at approximately 1.8757 pounds per dollar and increasing its gain from the start of the week. The Japanese yen has continued its strong week verses the dollar as the USD/JPY currency pair has declined from trading above 110.50 to start the week to trading at 108.56 today. Elsewhere, the USD/CHF has fallen to 1.0873 from 1.0970, the AUD/USD has risen from 0.8723 to 0.8783 and the NZD/USD has risen from 0.7135 to 0.7191 today in forex market trading.

USD/JPY Chart - The U.S. dollar has fallen this week verses the Japanese yen from trading above 110.50 to trading below 108.60 today. (1Hour Chart)

Forex Chart

tags: cad, usd, inflation, trade, jobs, producer prices

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