US Trade deficit increases in October. New Jobless claims jump. Dollar falls in Forex Trading. | CountingPips Forex Blog

December 11, 2008 - Forex Economic News

US Trade deficit increases in October. New Jobless claims jump. Dollar falls in Forex Trading.

The United States trade deficit grew more than expected in October according to a release by the Commerce Department today. The U.S. trade deficit grew to $57.2 billion in October following a revised deficit of $56.6 billion in September. Market forecasts were expecting the USD falls in Forex Trading, Currency Trade deficit to decline to approximately $53.5 billion for the month.

The U.S. had a total of $151.7 billion worth of exports in October which was an decrease of $3.4 billion over September's total. October also saw a decline in imports with a total $208.9 billion worth of imports compared with $211.6 billion in September for an decline of $2.7 billion for the month. Contributing to the higher trade deficit in October was a record increase in the imports of crude oil which totaled $37.7 billion and increased by 3 percent in the month.

Jobless Claims increase to 26 year high.

A separate government release by the U.S. Labor Department showed that weekly U.S. jobless claims increased in the week that ended on December 6th to the highest level in 26 years. New jobless claims grew to a total of 573,000 unemployed workers, an increase over the prior week by 58,000 workers. A 4-week moving average of unemployed workers rose by 14,250 from the prior week to a total of 540,500. Meanwhile, workers seeking continuing claims for unemployment benefits for the week ending November 29th increased by 338,000 workers to a total of 4,429,000 while a four week moving average of continuing claims grew by 130,750 to 4,133,500.

US Dollar falling in Forex Trading.

Today's forex market has seen US dollar weakness as the American currency is falling lower against all of the major currencies. The euro has increased verses the dollar as the EUR/USD pair has climbed from today's opening rate of 1.3046 dollars per euro at 00:00 GMT to trading at 1.3354 in the afternoon of the U.S. trading session at 12:47 pm ET. The British pound is advancing as the GBP/USD has gone from opening at 1.4869 to trading today at 1.5019. Against the Japanese yen, the US dollar has fallen from today's 92.47 opening rate to trading at 91.59.

The dollar has dropped against the Canadian loonie today as the USD/CAD pair trades at 1.2193 from its opening at approximately 1.2536 while verses the Swiss franc the dollar has declined from 1.1965 to trading at 1.1821. The Australian dollar has advanced to trading at 0.6784 today against the US dollar from 0.6566 while the New Zealand kiwi dollar has reached 0.5561 dollars per kiwi after opening at 0.5458 today.

EUR/USD Chart - The Euro advancing vs. the US Dollar today for the fourth day in a row(Hourly Chart).

Today's Forex Chart

tags: us trade balance, usd, jobless claims, forex trading, deficit

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