Major Market Makers

Durables orders on fire...

The U.S. department of commerce shocked the markets today by announcing a surprising huge incline in durable goods' orders for the month of December, beating November's reading and analysts expectations, giving markets the right treat for hectic speculation in the FOMC's call.
Durable goods order skyrocketed in the month December, recording an increase of 5.2% after a revised 0.5% increase in November, mainly due to aircraft sales, but at the same time durable goods orders excluding transportations also climbed by 2.6%, following a decline of 0.7% in November, and beating analysts' expectations of a loss of 0.1%, the numbers gave the stock market and the U.S. currency some strength as preparing for the FOMC rate decision tomorrow.

Transportation orders increased alone by 11.3%, while the incline in the orders that excludes transportation was mainly due to extreme demand on computers, communications and defense equipments that jumped 81% in December, the markets saw durable goods inline as a relief especially that on a certain level it contributes to the country's GDP which is scheduled to be released tomorrow for the 4th quarter 2007.

The dollar is very vulnerable nowadays to any report or any adjustment in the interest rate outlook as a result of good or bad news from the economy, that’s why we see a great deal of ups and downs in the exchange rates so far this week, all hoping that by the end of the week this cloud to pass, while the horizon and the future is more clear for traders and investors.

The conference board and in a separate report declared that consumer confidence did actually fall in January to 87.9 from a revised reading of 90.6 in December, showing that confidence started to drop with the new year especially with the end of the holiday season in the markets, yet last month's revision gave the dollar new pricing as a correction to the false pricing it had from December.

That’s all for today dear reader, the data for today mixed it up a little bit a head of the GDP data and the FOMC decision tomorrow, and instability is the best word to describe markets nowadays, wait until tomorrow and see, what the important number are going to tell you about the state of the world's largest economy...