The dollar remained weak and close to its recent lows at 8.10pm: the Dollar-Index climbed +0.15% to 103.60.

This rise was due to a sharp drop in the euro, from +0.2% this morning at 1.0960 to -0.35% at 1.0900.
The greenback remains unchanged against the Swiss franc, and gains 0.1% against the yen, but falls by the same amount against the pound (1.2520).

The FED has just published its 'minutes' this evening, and this is not a 'game changer' on FOREX.
The FED confirms that, while monetary conditions have tightened and are beginning to slow the economy, inflation remains "persistent": further rate hikes "remain on the table" if rates remain at current levels and do not move closer to the 2% target (nobody believes in this, obviously, as the risk is estimated at 0% by early 2024).

This is quite in line with Jerome Powell's latest speeches, and traders will remember that the FED is referring more and more often to a slowdown and less and less often to the risk of a new wave of inflation.

Wall Street's reaction is very discreet, and T-Bonds have just erased 0.5Pt of basis at 4.4300% (and returned to near equilibrium): a barely measurable gap which shows that the 'minutes' are in line with expectations.

It's hard to pinpoint a date when the FED will start cutting rates, but it seems that the US central bank itself doesn't know when that moment will come (Wall Street thinks it will be linked to the risk of rising unemployment).

The main event for the financial markets this afternoon was the US housing sales figures.
After a modest rebound at the start of the year, the trend in the US housing market is once again negative, with historically high borrowing rates and unaffordable prices hampering any possibility of recovery.

Sales of existing homes fell by 4.1% to a seasonally adjusted 3.79 million units last month, compared with economists' expectations of around 3.90 million.
Sales were down in three of the country's four main regions (Northeast, South and West), but were unchanged in the Midwest, says the NAR.

Over one year, home resales fell by 14.6%.
In the absence of supply, median home prices remain artificially tight: they rose by 3.4% to $391,800, marking the fourth consecutive month of monthly increases.


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