Follow Up – USD Jobless Claims and Continuing Claims July 16, 2009
Much to the surprise of the market and of the economic forecasters, the Unemployment Claims and Continuing Claims were down more than expected.
USD Unemployment Claims
Forecast was 530K, the Previous was 565K
Actual was 522K, the revision for the forecast was 550K, and the revision for the previous was 569K
USD Continuing Claims
Forecast was 6800K, the Previous was 6883K
Actual was 6273K, the revision for the forecast was 6850K, and the revision for the previous remained 6883K
But the surprise did not end there, I was surprised by the market action to the currency pairs EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY and USD/JPY which moved opposite to what I had expected, and possibly contrary to what some other traders believed would happen.
Within 2 minutes of the reports release, the market was buying the JPY and selling the EUR, GBP, and USD.
Here is what happened:
one minute chart USD/JPY - this currency pair remained going down a total of about 60 PIPS for an hour
one minute chart GBP/JPY - This currency pair continued down for the next hour for about 140 PIPS
one minute chart EUR/JPY - this currency pair remained going down about 120 PIPS for the next hour
I wonder if the 2 cross currency pairs and the USD/JPY have moved in the direction they moved the last time both reports were lower than expected. I will need to check back in my records.
However, the currency pairs, USD/CAD, GBP/USD and EUR/USD were doing as the probabilities would indicate in light of the favorable reports for the US economy, but not very exciting moves.
The Unemployment Claims and Continuing Claims both fell below forecast which is good for the USD. These currency pairs moved as in favor of a strengthening USD.
Here is what happened:
one minute chart EUR/USD - here the market was selling off the EUR for the USD, it moved down about 45 PIPS over the next hour.
one minute chart GBP/USD - moved down about 43 PIPS in 13 minutes, then reversed up about 30 PIPS in 17 minutes, the reversed down 50 PIPS the rest of the hour. The market was buying the USD and selling the GBP
one minute chart USD/CAD - moved up about 60 PIPS in an hour. The market was buying the USD and selling the CAD.
You can compare this report/post to the last weeks post HERE.
The next release of these 2 reports is scheduled to be released on the 23rd of July, 2009 at 8:30 AM ET – perhaps the information gleaned from my 2 posts will be of some benefit to readers of this blog.
