By CountingPips.com
The U.S. dollar has been mostly trading on the defensive in the forex markets today while the American stock markets closed slightly lower. The dollar has fallen versus the euro, British pound sterling, Swiss franc and the Japanese yen on the day while advancing against the New Zealand dollar, Australian dollar and the Canadian dollar, according to currency data near the end of the US trading session.
The Australian dollar briefly flirted with parity to the US dollar today as the AUD/USD currency pair touched a high 
point of 0.9994 and marked a new all-time high for the Aussie, according to currency data from Oanda.
The Japanese yen continued to strengthen versus the American currency as the USD/JPY pair touched the 80.89 exchange rate level in earlier trading. This marked the Japanese yen’s strongest exchange rate against the dollar in 15 years.
The U.S. stock markets, meanwhile, finished the day almost unchanged with the Dow falling by 1.51 points, the Nasdaq decreasing by 5.85 points and the S&P 500 down by 4.29 points.
Oil edged lower by $0.39 to $82.62 per barrel while gold continued its record run with an increase by $9.00 to trade at the $1,378.50 per ounce level. Gold reached a new all-time high in today’s trading above the $1,388.00 level before pulling back.
US trade deficit increases in August
The United States trade deficit widened by more than expected in August, according to a release by the Commerce Department today. The U.S. trade deficit increased by $3.7 billion as the deficit leveled at $46.3 billion in August following a revised deficit of $42.6 billion in July.
The data surpassed market forecasts that were expecting a deficit of approximately $44.0 billion for the month.
The U.S. had a total of $153.9 billion worth of exports in August which was an increase of $0.3 billion from July’s total. August also saw an increase in imports with a total of $200.2 billion worth of imports compared with $196.1 billion in July for a increase of $4.1 billion.
The politically sensitive U.S. trade deficit with China rose in August to a $28.0 billion shortfall after a deficit of $25.9 billion in July. Other notable U.S. trade deficits were the deficits with the European Union at $8.1 billion, Mexico at $6.0 billion, Japan at $5.8 billion and OPEC at $9.0 billion.
The U.S. trade surpluses with other countries for August included Hong Kong at $1.9 billion, Singapore at $1.1 billion, Australia at $1.0 billion and Egypt at $0.4 billion.
Producer Prices increase for third month in a row.
U.S. producer prices increased for a third straight month in September, according to a report released by the U.S. Labor Department. Producer prices or wholesale inflation increased by 0.4 percent in September following a 0.4 percent increase in August and a 0.2 percent gain in July.
On an annual basis, producer prices rose by 4.0 percent from September 2009 following August’s annual increase of 3.1 percent. Contributing to the price increase was a rise in food prices by 1.2 percent while energy prices increased by 0.5 percent in September and rose for a second straight month.
Economic forecasts for the monthly producer price numbers were expecting a 0.1 percent increase and a 3.7 percent gain on an annual basis. Core prices, excluding volatile energy and food costs, rose by 0.4 percent in September and registered a year-over-year increase of 1.6 percent with both figures surpassing the forecasts.
Weekly Jobless Claims rise by 13,000.
A separate government release by the U.S. Labor Department showed that weekly U.S. jobless claims increased in the week that ended on October 9th. New jobless claims climbed to a total of 462,000 unemployed workers, an increase over the prior week by 13,000 workers. This gain of jobless claims was more than expected as market forecasts predicted a fall to 445,000 jobless claims. The 4-week moving average of unemployed workers rose by 2,250 from the prior week to a total of 459,000.
Meanwhile, workers seeking continuing claims for unemployment benefits for the week ending October 2nd decreased for the week. Continuing claims declined by 112,000 workers to a total of 4,399,000 unemployed workers. The four week moving average of continuing claims fell by 34,500 to 4,488,500.
