© Reuters
Investing.com – The Producer Price Index and Unemployment Data released today have gained double interest from investors as follows.
Producer price index data
The main monthly record for January increased by 0.7%, while experts expected an increase of 0.4% in this month, after declining by -0.2% last December.
And annually, it increased from January by 6.0%, while experts expected it to rise by only 5.4%, while the annual data recorded, in the previous reading, an increase of 6.5% after revision.
The Producer Price Index (excluding food and energy) monthly rose by 0.5%, above expectations of a 0.3% rise. It rose annually by 5.4%, while experts expected it to rise by only 4.9%.
The US economy received 194 thousand jobless claims, which is less than the expected 200 thousand jobless claims.
Thus, the average number of jobless claims rose in 4 weeks to 189.50 thousand, instead of 189.00 thousand after the revision last week.
Philadelphia Industry and Labor Index
For February, it recorded a decline of -24.3 points, which is much greater than the expected decline of -7.4 points only.
The Philadelphia Business Conditions Index registered 1.7 points in February, down from 4.9 points in January.
Likewise, the Villafia employment index recorded 5.1 points for February, while it recorded 10.9 points in January.
The Building Permits for the month of January increased by 0.1% after declining by -1.0% from December.
Building permits recorded 1.339 million, while experts had expected it to reach 1.350
economic landscape
Yesterday, retail sales data came out positive, rising 3.00%, demonstrating the strength of the US economy despite the weak pace of inflation falling as per the latest CPI data. And led the retail sales data to break the resistance of 103.3, to decline by more than a point in return. Investors are eager for data to find out the US Federal Reserve’s position on interest rates, and whether interest rates are reaching 5.50% levels, or it is still far away.
markets now
It is now declining by 0.19%, to record $1841.80 an ounce, while spot gold contracts fell by $0.22, to record $1832.36 at the time of writing.
While the US dollar index rose by 0.11%, to approach again from the 104 levels, as it now records 103.955 against a basket of foreign currencies.
The yields of the two-year Treasury bonds increased by 0.19%, to now record 4.6358%, while the yields for the ten-year period were stable, recording 3.807%.
Contracts fell by 0.51%, to record $21.462 an ounce.
As for pre-opening US indices trading, we find that S&P futures lost 0.85%, and Dow Jones futures fell by 0.59%, losing 198 points, as well as losing 1.13% in pre-opening trading after 3 sessions of rise.
The producer price index for January, another measure of inflation, rose 0.7% during the month, while economists polled by Dow Jones expected a 0.4% increase.
Stocks closed slightly higher on Wednesday even after a stronger-than-expected January retail sales report indicated that the Federal Reserve may have to do more to tame inflation. It rose 38.78 points, or 0.11%, and the S&P 500 rose 0.28%. Meanwhile, it rose for the third consecutive day yesterday, up 0.92%.
