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The US Dollar firmed against most major currencies on Wednesday after data revealed far more new homes in US were sold in August than markets were expecting.The Census Bureau reported that U.S. new home sales rose 18.0% last month to 504,000 units, far surpassing expectations for a 4.4% gain to 430,000 units. New home sales for July were revised to a 1.9% increase from a previously estimated 2.4% drop. Separately, the Department of Energy reported earlier that crude stockpiles plunged by 4.3 million barrels last week, confounding market calls for a build of 386,000, which further stoked expectations that the U.S. economy is improving as evidenced by its demand for fuel and energy. Wednesday's data came a day after a report showed that the U.S. manufacturing sector expanded in September close to market expectations, which fueled already growing expectations that the Federal Reserve may hike interest rates sooner than markets have previously expected.In October, the Federal Reserve is expected to close its monthly bond-buying program and then begin raising benchmark interest rates some time in 2015, though the timing of the latter remains up in the air. EUR-USD flirted with 14-month lows after data revealed new U.S. homes sales soared last month, while dovish comments from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi kept the pair lower as well. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the central bank will keep its monetary policy "accommodative" for as long as needed and use every tool at its disposal to fight deflation, comments that softened the Euro and bolstered the US Dollar's appeal. "Monetary policy will remain accommodating for a long time and I can tell you that the Governing Council is unanimous in committing itself to using the tools at its disposal to bring inflation back to just under 2%," Draghisaid."Interest rates will remain low because they can’t get much lower," he added. The ECB unexpectedly cut rates to record lows this month in a bid to address slowing inflation. Also, German IFO survey of business sentiment hit 17-month lows yesterday putting fresh selling pressure on the EUR-USD but despite the big miss on in the headline numbers the price reaction in the pair was only modest as the currency remains grossly oversold. The IFO report printed at 104.7 versus 105.9 a full 1.2 points worse than forecast and more than 1.5 points lower than the month prior. All the gauges were lower with current assessment dropping to 110.5 from 111.1 the month prior while expectations dropped sharply to 99.3 from 101.70.“The German economy is no longer running smoothly,” Ifo said, but added that it still expected gross domestic product (GDP) to grow in 2014. The latest data from the EZ this week including Tuesday’s Flash PMI and yesterday’s IFO readings suggests that the region remains just above the expansionary level with growth running somewhere in the 0.1% to 0.3% range. While this growth is anemic at best it is nevertheless positive and therefore provides the ECB with more time before it commits to a massive stimulus policy.That’s why the reaction in EUR-USD has been muted so far as traders remain uncertain whether the ECB will unleash a large QE program anytime soon. With EUR-USD having dropped more than 1000 pips off its yearly highs much of the bad news has been priced and further downside moves are meeting stiffer resistance especially around the 1.2800 area which has acted as support for the past several days. Still the economic data from the EZ continues to be weak and sentiment against the unit remains negative but further selling may have to come from better US data as the gulf in economic performance between EZ and US continues to widen. The US Dollar has strengthened against the Japanese Yen and most other major currencies in recent weeks as traders prep for monetary policy to become less accommodative in the U.S. at a time when Japan and other central banks are taking steps to loosen policy. USD-JPY was up 0.06% at 109.033, and USD-CHF up 0.58% at 0.94533. Earlier in the day, USD-JPY eased briefly after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe voiced concerns over the economic impact of recent weakness in the Japanese Yen.Prime Minister Abe reportedly said that the weaker Japanese Yen had both positive and negative impacts and that he wanted to carefully watch the impact of Yen weakness on regional economies and on small and mid-sized companies. USD-JPY recovered from a session low of 108.449 and off a high of 109.140.GBP-USD was down 0.05% at 1.63387. Against the commodity currencies, the US Dollar was mixed with USD-CAD down 0.10% at 1.10574, AUD-USD up 0.07% at 0.88834 and NZD-USD up 0.25% at 0.80748. Tonight, expect markets to move on U.S. durable goods orders and weekly jobless claims numbers.
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