The ISM Manufacturing PMI for July 2013 jumped to 55.4 points. It was expected to advance from 50.9 to 52.1 points. This is a significant surprise pointing to strong growth. The employment component of the report is of significance to the expectations for Friday’s Non-Farm Payrolls and it is high: 54.4 instead of 48.6 last time. This is the highest since June 2012 and very encouraging.Â
EUR/USD was trading at 1.3250 before the publication, shrugging off the initial Draghi drag and it instantly dropped lower. USDJPY traded higher, above 99 enjoying the good jobless claims number in the US. It is now at 99.15. GBP/USD fell back to 1.52 and is now at 1.5160. — updates coming —
Among the components, prices dropped from 52.5 to 49 – into contraction territory. New orders are at the highest since April 2011, at 58.3, a leap from June’s 2011.
Construction spending was predicted to rise by 0.4% but dropped by 0.6%, on top of a downwards revision to the previous month.
Earlier, Markit’s final read for its manufacturing PMI came out at 53.7 points, better than the initial read of 53.2.
Earlier, US jobless claims surprised with a drop to 326K, significantly better than 346K expected and lower than last week’s 345K. Also continuing claims further dropped, and remained under the 3 million mark.
The biggest event is of course the Non-Farm Payrolls report.
See how to trade the NFP with EUR/USD.
