US Existing Home Sales fall in August. Dollar mixed today in Currency Trading. | CountingPips Forex Blog

September 24, 2008 - Forex Economic News

US Existing Home Sales fall in August. Dollar mixed today in Currency Trading.

U.S. Existing Homes sales retreated in month of August after increasing in July according to the monthly report produced by the National Association of Realtors. The NAR report showed that existing-home sales including single family homes, co-ops and townhouses decreased 2.2 percent in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.91 million units.

USD mixed in Currency Trading The report cited tightened mortgage conditions as hampering sales activity. NAR President Richard F. Gaylord said that, "The difficulty in obtaining a mortgage increased over past couple months, making it more challenging for creditworthy borrowers to find financing" and that, "Our hope is that overly tight lending criteria can be loosened with reasonable standards and credit so that sales activity can catch up with demand. Interest rates have already declined, but there is a serious question as to whether a cash infusion by the U.S. Treasury into Wall Street would help consumers by improving mortgage funding."

July's existing home sales showed a revised increase of 3.5 percent after last month's original estimates showed a 3.1 percent gain that had surpassed economic forecasts expecting a 0.8 percent rise. August's existing home annual sales rate fell to 10.7 percent below August 2007's sales pace. Market forecasts were expecting the August sales rate to fall by 1.0 percent to a 4.94 million unit pace.

The median sales price for existing homes in August was $203,100. This is down 9.5 percent from August 2007 which produced a median price of $224,400. Total housing inventory decreased in August by 7.0 percent to a total of 4.26 million homes.

US Dollar mixed in Currency Trading.

The U.S. dollar has been mixed in currency trading today against the other major currencies. The euro, pound, yen, loonie and the Swiss franc have all declined verses the dollar while the aussie and kiwi dollars have advanced today against the American currency. The EUR/USD pair has declined from today's opening rate of 1.4680 dollars per euro to trading at 1.4660 in the US afternoon trading session. The GBP/USD has declined from opening at 1.8536 to trading today at 1.8514. The US dollar is gaining for the second consecutive day against both the yen and Swiss franc as the USD/JPY has advanced from 105.64 to 106.10 yen per dollar and the USD/CHF has advanced from 1.0866 to 1.0889 today. Elsewhere, the dollar has gained a small amount of ground against the Canadian loonie and trading at the exchange rate of 1.0350 while falling verses the Australian Aussie which has increased to 0.8372 today and the New Zealand kiwi which has reached 0.6861 dollars per kiwi today.

USD/JPY Chart - The US dollar gaining vs. the Japanese yen today in forex trading for the second straight day(1Hour Chart).

Today's Forex Chart

tags: us existing home sales, forex trading, forex market, currency rates

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