A combination of poor data from the EU, and mixed data from the US dragged down the EUR/USD on Thursday's session. The EU's Industrial Production grew by 0.2% over the past 12 months, which was lower than the expected growth by 1.1%. Meanwhile, it contracted by 1.1% in October, which was lower than the expected growth by 0.3%.
In the US, its retail sales was up by 0.7%, which went higher than the expected growth by 0.6%. The same thing went for the retail sales ex autos which grew by 0.4% compared to the previous month. It was higher than the expected 0.2% growth.
Not everything was rosy, though, since initial jobless claims was at 368K as of 6 December. It was higher than the previous 300K, and analysts' expectations of 320K. Continuing jobless claims was also higher at 2.791M, compared to the previous 2.751M and the expected 2.75M.
All in all, the data from the EU and the US dragged down the EUR/USD pair on Thursday. It may remain flat throughout the rest of Friday's trading as today is light on data. The pair is currently trading at 1.3752, with initial resistance at 1.3778, followed by 1.3812. Meanwhile, initial support is at 1.3677, followed by 1.3642.
RBA Governor Glenn Stevens' statement on the aussie on Thursday gave a massive blow to the currency, after he said that he thinks, "85 would be closer to the mark than 95 at the time we started to make some comments some months ago, but, really, I don’t think we can be that precise." This led to a sell-off of the aussie, which dragged down the AUD/USD pair to the sub-90 level.
There was some respite at the opening of today's session, however. From lows around the 0.8920 zone, the AUD/USD pair made a gentle climb back up and is currently trading at 0.8943. Initial resistance for the pair is at 0.9006, followed by 0.9029. Meanwhile, initial support is at 0.8840, followed by 0.8817.
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