EUR/USD: US Advance GDP and Unemployment Claims

The Euro traded sideways against the US Dollar, following the US Advance GDP and Unemployment Claims data releases on Thursday at 12:30 GMT. The EUR/USD exchange currency rate lost 2 pips or 0.02% after the release. The Euro continued trading at the 1.1790 level against the Greenback after the release.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released the US Advance GDP data, which came out better-than-expected of negative 32.9 compared with the forecast of negative 34.5. Note that the US Unemployment Claims data was released at the same time.

According to the official release: "The decline in second quarter GDP reflected the response to COVID-19, as "stay-at-home" orders issued in March and April were partially lifted in some areas of the country in May and June, and government pandemic assistance payments were distributed to households and businesses. This led to rapid shifts in activity, as businesses and schools continued remote work and consumers and businesses canceled, restricted, or redirected their spending. The full economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be quantified in the GDP estimate for the second quarter of 2020 because the impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified."