By CountingPips.com
U.S. producer prices increased for a second straight month in May according to a report released today by the U.S. Labor Department. Producer prices or wholesale inflation increased by 0.2 percent in May following a 0.3 percent increase in April and a 1.2 percent decline in March. On an annual basis, producer prices have decreased by 5.0 percent from May 2008 following April’s annual 3.7 
percent decline. Contributing to the price increase was a rise in energy prices by 2.9 percent in May after energy had decreased in both April and March.
Economic forecasts for the monthly producer price numbers were expecting a 0.6 percent increase and a 4.4 percent decrease on an annual basis. Core prices, excluding volatile energy and food costs, increased by 0.1 percent in May and registered a year-over-year increase of 3.0 percent.
Housing Starts, Building Permits rise.
U.S. Housing Starts and Building Permits increased in the month of May according to data released by the Commerce Department on new residential construction. Housing Starts grew by 17.2 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 532,000, an increase from April’s 454,000 estimated housing starts. May’s total on an annual basis, despite the monthly increase, is down 45.2 percent compared with May of 2008.
Building permits statistics, used as a predictor of future construction, showed a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 518,000 permits in May which is an increase of 4.0 percent compared to April. On an annual basis, May’s total is 47.0 percent below the level of May 2008.
Housing Completions for May decreased when compared to April with an annual rate of 811,000 privately-owned housing completions. This is a decrease of 3.3 percent from April and May’s annual rate is 28.8 percent below the May 2008 level.
Forex Market – US Dollar falling in Forex today.
The U.S. dollar has been falling lower in forex trading today after gaining yesterday. The dollar has fallen versus the euro, pound, franc, aussie, kiwi, loonie and the yen.
The euro has advanced versus the dollar today as the EUR/USD has risen from today’s 1.3799 opening(00:00 GMT) to trading at approximately 1.3843 in the afternoon of the US trading session at 1:42pm EST according to currency data by Oanda.
The British pound has increased today versus the American currency as the GBP/USD has gone from the 1.6246 opening to trading at 1.6421 dollars per pound.
The dollar has declined against the Japanese yen as the USD/JPY trades at 96.37 after its 96.64 opening exchange rate. The dollar has fallen against the Canadian loonie dollar after opening at 1.1350 earlier today to trading later at 1.1332.
The USD has declined against the Swiss franc after the USD/CHF’s opening at 1.0914 to trading at the 1.0874 exchange rate.
The Australian dollar has advanced as the AUD/USD has gone from 0.7900 to trading at 0.7971 while the New Zealand dollar (NZD/USD) has climbed from 0.6272 usd per nzd to trading at 0.6332.
