The United Sates has front loaded all the month-end data to today because of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and the half-day session for equities on Friday. The most important data released today was U.S. GDP (Preliminary) for Q2, Chicago PMI for November, Pending Home Sales for October and the Core PCE Price Index, which is one of the Fed’s favorite measures of inflation.
GDP for Q3 (QoQ) was released at 2.1% vs 1.9% expected. This is the second look at the data, however, and it is looking at Q3. We are halfway through Q4, therefore, price didn’t move a great deal on the release. Immediately after the release, USD/JPY spiked 10 pips from 109.15 to 109.25, while the S&P 500 was little changed.
Chicago PMI was released an hour and fifteen minutes later. The number shows the first solid look at manufacturing data for the month of November. The reading of 43.2 for October was the lowest reading since December 2015. This month’s reading was 46.3 vs 47 expected. Although a touch lower than expected, again prices were close to unchanged upon its release.
Fifteen minutes after that, the headline PCE Price Index (MoM) was 0.2% vs 0.2% expected. The Core PCE Price Index (YoY), however, was 1.6% vs 1.7% expected. The kicker in today’s data was the Pending Home Sales for October. The expected reading was +0.2%, but the headline number was -1.7%! Upon the release, the US Dollar index fell from 98.44 down to 98.36.
Watch to see if the U.S. Dollar selling continues. Notice the failure so far in the US Dollar Index to take out recent highs and the 50% retracement from the Oct. 1 highs to the Oct. 18 lows. If price trades back to 98.20, it will fill the overnight gap and be extremely bearish heading into the holiday. However, if price can hold on to its gains and move higher, the DXY will be in good shape heading in to shortened trading day on Friday and into the weekend.
Over the next few hours, things should begin to slow down as people begin leaving early for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. There may be some squaring up on the books as the U.S. heads into a (sort of) long holiday weekend.