It was a very quiet session on the FOREX, despite a busy calendar on the US stats front.
he dollar rallied a little on Thursday, on the strength of US figures deemed robust (in reality, they came out rather mixed): the $-Index recovered +0.15% to 160.10.
It is firmest against the euro (+0.25% to 1.0644), followed by the yen (+0.15% to 154.6) and the Swiss franc (+0.1% to 0.915).

Forex and bond market specialists paid particular attention to signs of robustness in the US economy, with the Philly Fed manufacturing index climbing 12 points to 15.5 in April, its third consecutive positive figure and its highest level since April 2022.... while the consensus was for a decline of -1.5Pt.

The number of registered jobseekers remained stable at 212,000, while a slight weekly increase was expected (to 215,000).

Weaker economic signals with the index of leading indicators, supposed to foreshadow the evolution of economic activity in the United States, which fell again in March (-0.3% to 102.4), announced the Conference Board, which sees this as a sign of slowing growth.

The ConfBoard describes the outlook for the US economy as "fragile" or even "recessionary", penalized by rising household debt, high interest rates and persistent inflation.

From his point of view, growth should therefore tend to slow in the second half of the year, leading him to anticipate a deceleration in GDP growth in the second and third quarters.

Finally, on the real estate front, following a 14.7% drop in housing starts announced the previous day, sales of existing homes in the United States fell by 4.3% between February and March to 4.19 million annualized and seasonally adjusted (SA), according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

The median sale price reached $393.500, up 4.8% year-on-year, and the stock of unsold existing homes rose by 4.7% to 1.11 million at the end of March, representing 3.2 months of inventory at the current rate.

Despite the drop in the number of transactions, first-time buyers made a small comeback in March... but the parenthesis has just closed, with the '30-year' rate back above 4.73% (+50Pts since April 1).

The few weaknesses in the US economy are not impressing IMF boss Kristalina Georgieva, who is revising upwards the growth outlook for the USA, which is accumulating record debt.


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