US New Home Sales Miss, Equities and USDJPY Under Pressure

Talking Points:

-New Home Sales (MAR) came in at 384K vs. 450K est. and 449K revised prior

-Month over month loss of 14.5% vs. +2.3% est. and -4.5% revised prior

-US Markit Manufacturing PMI (APR P) comes in at 55.4 vs. 56.0 est.

New Home Sales out of the U.S. for the month of March came in at the worst month over month rate since last summer. The 14.5% MoM decline meant only 384K new homes were sold in March versus expectations of a 2.3% uptick to 450K. This disappointing data comes just after the US Markit Manufacturing PMI data for April came in at 55.4 versus expectations of 56.0 and 55.5 prior.

This adds to pressure on U.S. equity markets and emerging market FX crosses following the HSBC China PMI data that indicated the countries manufacturing sector is still in decline overnight. The Australian Dollar has been under a great deal amount of pressure as last night’s CPI data indicated the pace of price increases were lower than markets expected. Once again, we saw the USDCNH rate hit highs not seen since 2012 at the release.

Event risk for the rest of the day includes the RBNZ Rate Decision at 21:00GMT in which market expectations call for a 25bps increase in the official cash rate to 3.00%.

USDJPY April 23rd, 2014 (5-Minute Chart)

Source: FXCM Marketscope

Gregory Marks, DailyFX Research Team

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