US Durable Goods, New Home Sales fall in August. Dollar gains in Fx Trade. | CountingPips Forex Blog

September 25, 2008 - Forex Economic News

US Durable Goods, New Home Sales fall in August. Dollar gains in Fx Trade.

Economic news out of the U.S. today was less than stellar as durable goods orders declined more than forecast and new home sales fell to its lowest annual rate in 17 years in the month of August.

Durable goods orders in the United States fell 4.5 percent in August to a total of $208.5 billion according to news released by the U.S. Commerce Department today. August's total was $9.9 billion less than July's total which had shown an increase of 0.8 percent from June.

Market forecasts had been expecting that durable goods orders would decrease by approximately 1.5 percent for the month. New orders for durable goods excluding transportation declined by 3.0 percent in August following an increase of 0.1 percent in July and falling more than forecasts predicting a decrease of 0.4 percent.

Durable goods are products manufactured in the U.S. and considered to last more than three years. August's results for shipments of durable goods decreased by 3.5 percent or $7.7 billion reversing two straight increasing months. Unfilled orders increased 0.4 percent($3.0 billion) in the month and durable good inventories increased 0.7 percent($2.4 billion) from July which saw a 0.9 percent gain. August nondefense orders for new goods fell by 7.5 percent while defense orders for goods increased by 0.9 percent.

U.S. New Home Sales fall.

New Home Sales in the United States declined in the month of August after increasing in July according to data released by the Department of Commerce today. Purchases of new single family homes fell to an annual rate of 460,000 in August, a 11.5 percent drop from July's rate of 520,000. August's annual rate of new homes sold was 34.5 percent lower than the that of August 2007 and marked the lowest annual sales rate since 1991.

August's decline follows a revised increase of 4.0 percent in July and was below market forecasts predicting an annual rate of 510,000 new sales and a monthly decline by 1.0 percent.

The median sales price of new homes in August was $221,900 down from $236,500 in August 2007 while the average sales price was $263,900 and below the August 2007 level of $301,300.

Dollar gains in forex market today.

The US dollar has gained in forex trading against the all of the major currencies except the Canadian dollar today despite the gloomy economic data. The euro has lost ground to the dollar as the EUR/USD pair opened at 1.4707 and is trading at approximately 1.4593 dollars per euro in the afternoon of the US trading session. The British pound has declined verses the buck to trading around 1.8345 after opening the day at 1.8566 dollars per pound.

The dollar looks to be on its way to gaining against the Japanese yen for the third day in a row as the USD/JPY pair is trading near the 106.50 level today after opening at approximately 105.80 today. The dollar is also gaining verses the franc after declining against the Swiss currency yesterday and is trading around the 1.0880 level after opening at 1.0844 earlier today. Elsewhere, the Australian dollar has fallen verses the buck to 0.8361 and the New Zealand dollar has also declined to approximately 0.6829 verses the American currency.

The Canadian dollar is the lonesome currency to appreciate verses the US dollar today as the loonie has been trending back towards parity and has reached 1.0336 Canadian dollars per US dollars today at around 3pm ET.

EUR/USD Chart - The euro falling vs. the US dollar today in forex trading(1Hour Chart).

Today's Forex Chart

tags: new home sales, durable goods, forex market, dollar trading

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