The US Dollar softened against the Pound and Euro as the release of mixed economic data increased speculation that the US economy is not yet strong enough for the Federal Reserve to begin reducing its monetary easing programme in September.
The US Dollar/Pound Sterling Exchange Rate softened to 0.6397 on Friday
The ‘Greenback’ weakened broadly against a number of its most traded peers after official data released by the Washington based Labour department showed that non-farm productivity rose to 0.9% in the second quarter of the year, beating economist forecasts of 0.6%.
Other data however was less positive. The latest report on US Building permits showed that the number granted rose by 2.7% to 0.943 million units in July, far below economist expectations of a rise of 2.9%. The report also showed that the number of housing starts increased to 5.9% but again disappointed investors who had called for a rise of 8.3%.
“Things are still better than they were a year ago, but it feels like progress has stalled out for a little while. Builders, will eventually expand operations, they’ll hire workers and get more aggressive. At the moment they’re happy to keep the market tightly supplied because that allows them to raise prices” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securitites LLC.
Despite the mixed data the Dollar looks set to end the week making a weekly gain as economic data released earlier in the week maintains it at a stronger rate.
Current US Dollar (USD) Exchange Rates
The US Dollar/Pound Sterling Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 0.6397
The US Dollar/Euro Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 0.7495
The US Dollar/Australian Dollar Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 1.0892
The US Dollar/Japanese Yen Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 97.3425
The US Dollar/Canadian Dollar Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 1.0303
(Correct as of 14:30 pm GMT)
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