USDJPY Gains as Advanced Retail Sales Comes In-Line

Talking Points:

• US Advanced Retail Sales comes in at 0.6% vs 0.6% forecast
• Core retail sales come with positive revisions from last month
• USDJPY sets fresh highs – finding support at ¥124.616

US Advanced Retail sales had a 0.6% print compared to 0.6% estimates set forward by Bloomberg News economists. The data for July represents a +0.9% increase from June which came in at -0.3%. The core reading excluding Auto and Gas came in at 0.4%, in line with estimates, with a +0.4% revision from last month. Overall, retail sales data was favorable for July – boosting the Dollar in the near term, which traded higher through the Asia session.

USDJPY spiked on the back of the data before finding support at the ¥124.616 level. The candle close at 12:30GMT closed at ¥124.545 and surged through previous highs in the minutes following the data. The pair erased most of its gains from the encouraging data and is trading at ¥124.461 at the time of writing.

Here’s a full summary of the Retail Sales Data from this morning:

USD Advance Retail Sales: 0.6% vs 0.6%, from -0.3% M/M

USD Retail Sales Control Group: 0.3% vs 0.5%, from 0.2% (revised higher from -0.1%) M/M

USD Retail Sales Ex Auto: 0.4% vs 0.4%, from 0.4% (revised higher from -0.1%) M/M

USD Retail Sales Ex Auto and Gas: 0.4% vs 0.4% from 0.2% (revised higher from -0.2%) M/M

Advance retail sales provide market participants with information on the sale of goods to consumers at retail outlets. The core figure excludes variable figures. Consumer spending is vital to the US economy accounting for 2/3 of all economic activity.

For live economic data release see the DailyFX Economic Calendar