A bundle of quick fire data points but what does it all mean?
Apologies for the service disruption as we lost our back-end, which only came back up about 30 seconds before the data, so it was a bit of a rush.
Retail sales stink. Not hugely, and like others, can be volatile. They do seem to go against the stronger consumer and consumption numbers we've seen elsewhere. The initial shock has already worn off, or is wearing off in the USD. It's certainly not a game changer for the Fed
Philly Fed was good and gives the manufacturing sector a little boost. Empire State was a touch lower than expected but not as bad as last month. Remember this is the first manufacturing numbers of Sep so is often used as a gauge for the new month. Overall, some good news but again, not a game changer for the FOMC.
PPI was pretty flat overall but with a decent lift in the more core numbers which will play into the bigger inflation picture.
Jobless claims we're pretty much same old same old and nothing to change the main view of the wider jobs market.
The Current account balance was Q2 numbers so not really a lot of use to anyone right now.
USDJPY dropped to 101.94 on the main retail sales reaction but we've already undone all of that and may even do a bit more as we trade at 102.34.
Once again, sorry for the poor service.
