Employment in the US has been strong for some time now and there has been some extremely positive jobless claims data of late. However, initial jobless claims were expected to increase a little this time around to 210,000 from 204,000. But they actually fell again to 201,000, hitting the lowest level since 15 November 1969 in the process.
Existing home sales in the US were unchanged at a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.34 million in August 2018. This was below expectations of a 0.3% rise and meant sales held at their lowest rate since February 2016. The dollar did nothing following the release and was weak throughout the day. This helped the Dow Jones reach its all-time highest level which Trump acknowledged on his Twitter account.
Yesterday morning, China said that America hasn’t been sincere over trade, which is an allusion to the fact that Trump slapped 10% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods as the White House was pushing for new talks. It remains to be seen whether a truce can be reached between the two superpowers.
Like the eurozone, today we will see composite, manufacturing and services PMI in the US. All three are expected to improve a little from the previous month.
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