By CountingPips.com
The US dollar has been mixed in forex trading action following the better than expected retail sales news released earlier today. The dollar has been gaining ground against the euro, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc while losing ground to the British pound sterling, Japanese yen and the New Zealand Kiwi. The Australian dollar is currently trading almost unchanged against the dollar from the day’s opening exchange rate.
The US stock markets have been mixed with the Dow Jones industrial average falling by approximately 41 points so far today while the NASDAQ is up by over 20 points and the S&P 500 is higher by approximately 1 point.
Today’s US retail sales data showed that sales increased by more than expected in September and rose for a third consecutive month. The advance estimate of monthly retail sales, released by the US Commerce Department, showed that sales advanced by 0.6 percent to $367.7 billion in September from August. The data was better than the market expectations that were predicting a 0.4 percent rise for the month.
The August retail sales data was revised higher from the 0.4 percent originally reported increase to a rise of 0.7 percent. On an annual basis, the September retail sales data rose by 7.3 percent above the September 2009 sales level.
Core retail sales, excluding automobiles, increased by 0.4 percent in September following a 1.0 percent increase in August and surpassed economic forecasts that were expecting core sales to rise by 0.3 percent.
Contributing to the higher sales level for the month was a rise in automobile sales with a 1.6 percent increase while electronics and appliance stores, miscellaneous store retailers and nonstore retailers all had increases of 1.0 percent or more in September.
Food and beverage store sales increased by 0.4 percent while gasoline station sales also showed an increase by 0.4 percent.
