Market Update

The sales of new single-family houses in the United States registered a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 842,000 during December 2020, initial data jointly-released by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development showed on Thursday. The reading indicates a 1.6% rise compared with the …

Canadian building permits declined in value by 4.1% during December, data by Statistics Canada showed on Thursday. The decline comes below market expectations of a 5% decrease. On an annual basis, building permits decreased to an unadjusted reading of 2.3% last year compared with 2019, but rose by 3.1% compared …

Inflation in Germany, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), came at 0.8% in January, according to the flash estimate of Destatison Thursday. Moreover, the annual CPI rose to 1% from -0.3% in December.

There were 847,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending January 23, the data published by the US Department of Labor showed on Thursday. This reading followed the previous print of 914,000 and came in better than the market estimates of 875,000.

The United States’ Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded at an annual rate of 4% in the fourth quarter, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis’ advance estimate showed on Thursday. This reading followed the 33.4% growth recorded in the third quarter and came in line with analysts’ estimates.

The most prominent event on the US calendar today is the fourth-quarter GDP report due out at 13:30 GMT. Economists are expecting the preliminary figure to show 3.9% year-on-year growth in the October-December period, which indicates growth losing momentum by a large margin compared to the strong recovery in Q4 …

Al Naji Iqbal, Governor of the Turkish Central Bank, said that Turkey’s economic growth recorded a strong trend at the end of 2020, but it slowed according to recent indicators, partly due to the tightening of monetary policy that began in August and the slowdown in credit growth. In the …

China is reportedly said to abandon its GDP growth target for 2021, Reuters reports, citing sources familiar with the matter. A government adviser, one of three sources saying the target will again be scrapped, noted: “We will not set an explicit target, but in reality, there will be a target. …

European stocks reached their lowest level in nearly a month after the worst-selling wave in Wall Street since October due to concerns about rising valuations, while investors grew concerned about an increase in infections with a new, more contagious strain of the Coronavirus. The European STOXX 600 index fell 1%, …

Gold prices fell on Thursday as investors turned to the dollar in search of safety after the decline in global stock markets, while the Federal Reserve (US Central Bank) raised concerns about the pace of the economic recovery in the United States. Gold fell in immediate transactions 0.5% to $ …