Construction and ISM data are in direct conflict with the Markit release claiming significant strength across the board. Gold has recovered a bit on the news but equities are taking a hit as is the dollar. NZD/USD has popped about 15 pips to .84720.
CNBC has a concise bit on why the pain from such gross numbers hasn’t hit the markets harder:
The Commerce Department says construction spending rose 0.2 percent inApril to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $953.5 billion, the strongest performance since March 2009. The April increase was lower than economists had expected, but the government revised March activity higher to a 0.6 percent gain, up from an initial estimate of a 0.2 percent increase.
Markets haven’t given up the losses from this and the crappy ISM numbers yet, but there’s definitely an undercurrent of excuse making that is perhaps mitigating the downside.
