A slight upturn in the dollar after 3 complicated sessions and an overall decline of -1% on the $-Index, which fell from 105.33 to 104.21 this morning (retracement of the 104.2 low of April 9).

The euro gave back a small part of yesterday's gains (+0.6%) and fell by -0.1% to 1.0870 (it peaked at 1.0900 this morning).
The Yen is consolidating loosely (-0.2% against the $) as Japan's GDP fell by -0.5% in Q1.
The Dollar is gaining 0.1% against the Pound and +0.3% against the Swiss Franc, the weakest currency of the day (-0.2% against the Euro).

The greenback showed little reaction to a flurry of figures published in the US, and in particular to a sharp rise in US import prices, due to an almost generalized increase in the cost of imported goods.

The Labor Department reported a +0.9% increase in import prices last month, following a 0.6% rise in March.
This was their biggest increase since March 2022... a far cry from the 0.2% expected.
While rising petroleum product costs were the main reason for this higher-than-expected statistic, various categories of goods saw their prices rise, which could rekindle fears of persistent inflation.

Prices of imported petroleum products rose by 2.4% in April, following a 5.4% jump in March, but the increase also concerned industrial materials (+2.7%) and agricultural food products (+2.2%).

The Philly Fed manufacturing activity index unexpectedly fell by -11pts to 4.5 after 15.5 in April (down towards 8 was anticipated), due in particular to the -20Pts plunge in the 'new orders' component, which fell to -7.9fell to -7.9 from 12.2 in April.
The 6-month business outlook remained relatively stable at 32.4, after 34.3 the previous month.
The employment sub-index improved to -7.9 from -10.7 in April, while the paid prices sub-index fell to 18.7 from 23.

On the real estate front, the Commerce Department reported a 5.7% rebound in US housing starts in April compared with the previous month, to an annualized rate of 1,360,000, following a 16.8% decline in March.
On the other hand, U.S. building permits - thought to be a precursor of future housing starts - fell by 3% to 1,440,000 last month.
Finally, weekly jobless claims contracted by -10,000 to 222,000, a score that suggests a situation of 'full employment', which could push up wages.

Gold, which most often moves inversely to the Dollar, climbed to $2,382 (heading for a record close), and silver materialized a major breakout by clearing the major resistance of $29/Oz, averaging a +4% surge to $29.8.
Silver is often seen as a precursor of inflation: while oil has corrected well over the last 4 weeks, copper is soaring above $11,000 a tonne in New York ($10,400 in London), a milestone all-time high.



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