Final US GDP growth for Q4 2013 was slightly revised to the upside: 2.6%. It was expected to be revised to the upside from 2.4% to 2.7% to the upside. Weekly jobless claims printed a positive surprised with a drop to 311K. They carried expectations for 326K after 321K last week (revised up from 320K). Continuing claims dropped from 2.876 to 2.823 million.
Before this set of data, EUR/USD traded around 1.3760, GBP/USD kept its fresh rises and traded at 1.6630 while USD/JPY was above 102.30. The dollar is higher now.
The upwards revision in GDP consists of a meaningful rise in healthcare growth. Inventory growth is slightly lower than expected. Real final sales is up 2.7% from 2.3% previously reported. This is the good news.
The final GDP price index was left unchanged at 1.6%. While the headline revision is a slight miss, the components look good. Consumer spending is significantly higher: 3.3% instead of 2.6%,while corporate profits are down from 2.4% to 2%.
The pace of economic growth fell from the strong third quarter which saw an annualized level of 4.1%. This was due to the government shutdown and the first winter storms. In addition, part of this growth is inventory driven: building up inventories now usually means depleting them later on. So, this isn’t the healthiest growth.
There is still on important release today. See how to trade the US pending home sales with EUR/USD.
