Greek Situation Pushes EUR Lower; UK Retail Sales Disappoint

EUR continues lower amid unceasing Greek worries. GBP punished after weak retail sales data. Market turns to US jobless claims, housing data and Philly Fed index.

London sees higher USD, except against JPY and CHF. The financial and political situation in Greece is worsening everyday and any credible solution seems nowhere to be found. News about Greek unemployment rate for Q1 shooting up to 15.9% from 14.2% in Q4 did not help. EZ employment rate for Q1 was unchanged; market expected an improvement to 0.2%. EZ annual CPI rate came in line with expectation at 2.7%.

UK retail sales disappointed with a 1.4% decline, vs expected -0.5%. This is the lowest reading since February 2010. GBP has lost about 70 points on the back of the news release.

Todays New York session starts at 8:30 am ET with a number of data releases. US May Building Permits are expected to decrease slightly to 550K from 563K and May Housing Starts are expected to increase to 545K from previous 523K. In light of the recent flood of disappointing economic figures, it is hard to imagine a positive surprise.

Current Account deficit in Q1 is expected to widen to 126B from previous 113B and Unemployment Claims are still stubbornly holding well above the 400K mark. This week Claims are expected at 421K.

At 10:00 am ET, the Philly Fed index that measures manufacturing activity in Philadelphia is expected to increase slightly in June from previous 3.9 to 7.1. Yesterday, the Empire State Manufacturing index came out significantly below expectation so disappointing print is somewhat likely. The severity of the decline is highlighted by the fact that over the past six months, Philly Fed index stayed around 20, in March it spiked to 43.4 and in May it dropped to 3.9. Manufacturing and other indices from many countries have shown decreasing values lately as a significant portion of economies around the world are slowing down.