US durable goods orders fall 1.4% in February, worse than expected. Core orders all fell, by 0.4%. Also the non defense ex air is down 1.4%. This comes on top of downwards revisions and erases the hope for the end of negative US surprises that plagued the greenback’s trade of late.
The US dollar is weaker, with EUR/USD rising above 1.10. The moves are relatively limited though.
GBP/USD is around 1.4950, USD/JPY trades at 119.30, USD/CAD remains under 1.25, AUD/USD aims at 0.79 once again and NZD/USD gets closer to 0.77.
Headline orders for January were revised down to a rise of only 2%. Other figures suffered negative changes as well.
US durable goods orders were expected to rise by 0.3% in February 2015 after a big rise of 2.8% in January. Core orders carried predictions for a rise of 0.3% as well, following a flat read beforehand.
The US dollar was on the back foot towards the publication, with EUR/USD flirting with 1.10 once again.
Durable goods orders impact GDP calculations. They stood out as one of the negative surprises of late, with month after month misses, together with other numbers.
However, yesterday we finally had a streak of positive surprises: core inflation edged up to 1.7% and new home sales leaped to the highest in 7 years.
More: Get Ready For More FX Volatility Ahead – SocGen
