US consumers are feeling more confident: 101.4 points in June, better than expected. The number for May was revised down from 95.4 to 94.6 points, but the markets focus on the present and not on the past. This is yet another positive data point for the second quarter and in theory implies strong retail sales.
The dollar is slightly higher on the news.
The current conditions component is up from 107.1 to 111.6 points. The “jobs hard to get†component is down from 27.2 to 25.7 points.
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence measure for June was expected to rise to 97.3 points in June from 95.4 in May. Consumer confidence measures are considered as leading indicators towards the retail sales released later on.
The dollar was on the back foot towards the publication, with EUR/USD around 1.12, GBP/USD around 1.5757, USD/JPY at 122.25, USD/CAD at 1.2430, AUD/USD around 0.7720 and NZD/USD at 0.6780.
Earlier, Chicago PMI came out at 49.4 points, below 50 points expected but above 46.2 in May.
This is the last day of the month and the quarter. Last minute adjustments also affect markets.
There are fast moving developments around Greece.
