Orders of durable goods rose by 1.3% in November, lower than 2% expected. Looking at core orders, we already have an outright drop of 0.1% against a rise that was expected. A deeper dive into the core of the core points to a drop of 0.1% as well.

Sales of durable goods feed into GDP and represent the long-term investment in the US economy, something that is of interest to the federal reserve.

A separate report showed that the Fed's favorite measure of inflation came out at 0.1% m/m and 1.5% y/y. This was not a surprise but at least it is above the previous level of 1.4% y/y. Reaching the holy grail of 2% seems a bit far out at the moment. We already know that inflation is not going anywhere fast.

That report also showed that personal spending is up 0.6% in November, slightly beating expectations for 0.6%. Personal income, on the other hand, rose by only 0.3% instead of 0.4% predicted.

The US dollar mostly ignored the data.