The report showing an unexpected drop in the US new home sales in July boosted an initial fall in the USD/JPY. The Yen strengthened against the US dollar by 0.08% to reach the 109.39 mark, albeit the pair returned to testing pre-data levels in the Thursday's morning session.
The Commerce Department revealed that new home sales in the US fell 9.4% to a seasonally adjusted amount of 571K units in July, which was the strongest decline since December 2016. Weak figures raised concerns over the future recovery and healthy growth of the country's property market. Data would be closely watched to evaluate whether enhanced supply conditions would help reinforce sales conditions in the next couple of months.
| Historical Data Table : New Home Sales | |||||
| Date | 25.04.2017 | 23.05.2017 | 23.06.2017 | 26.07.2017 | 23.08.2017 |
| Actual | 621K | 569K | 610K | 610K | 571K |
| Forecast | 590K | 611K | 599K | 615K | 610K |
| Initial Reaction on Main Pairs | |||||
| Open Price | Close Price | % Change | |||
| AUD/USD | 0.7892 | 0.78965 | 0.06% | ||
| USD/CHF | 0.96578 | 0.96497 | -0.08% | ||
| USD/JPY | 109.187 | 109.095 | -0.08% | ||
| NZD/USD | 0.72149 | 0.72191 | 0.06% | ||