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Breakdown of the latest developments on the global exchanges
Jun 14, 2019, 12:00 PM GMT
#Economy

Strong Retail Sales in the US Give Further Boost to the Greenback

Earlier today, the US Census Bureau released the highly anticipated retail sales data, which uplifted the investor expectations even more.

"Advance estimates of US retail and food services sales for May 2019, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $ 519.0 billion, an increase of 0.5 per cent from the previous month, and 3.2 per cent above May 2018." [source]

The improvement of the year-to-year performance indicates that the American consumers remain upbeat about the state of affairs of the US economy, despite the ongoing escalation of the trade tensions between the US and China. The better-than-expected sales performance of the US retail sector means that the FED would have an opportunity to rethink the overall growth prospects and perhaps maintain the interest rate at the current level, without having to think about reductions in the near-term.

"Total sales for March 2019 through May 2019 period were up 3.6 per cent from the same period a year ago. The March 2019 to April 2019 per cent change was revised from down 0.2 per cent to up 0.3 per cent."

The news supported the US dollar, which is still recovering from a recent slump, and its index rose with 0.08 immediately after the release of the report and thus stabilizing above the significant support level, which is shown in the chart below: