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From the UK, yesterday, house prices figures were released. House prices continue to remain broadly flat, as they have since the end of last year. The annual rate of growth has slowed from 2.2% in January to 1.8% in February, the lowest rate of growth since March 2013. “The labour market continues to perform strongly with the number of people in employment rising by 88,000 in the three months to December. Notably, this is almost entirely accounted for by full-time jobs.

In the US session ADP job figures and Trade Balance data was published. Private sector employment increased by 235,000 jobs from January to February according to the February ADP National Employment Report.“The labor market continues to experience uninterrupted growth,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute.  “We see persistent gains across most industries with leisure and hospitality and retail leading the way as consumer spending kicked up. At this pace of job growth employers will soon become hard-pressed to find qualified workers.”

 

The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that the goods and services deficit was $56.6 billion in January, up $2.7 billion from $53.9 billion in December, revised. January exports were $200.9 billion, $2.7 billion less than December exports. January imports were $257.5 billion, down less than $0.1 billion from December imports. The January increase in the goods and services deficit reflected an increase in the goods deficit of $2.8 billion to $76.5 billion and an increase in the services surplus of $0.1 billion to $19.9 billion.

 

There will be no major data releases from the UK tomorrow. In the US session Unemployment Claims figures will be released. Analysts predict increase to 220,000.

 

Figures to watch:

 

Unemployment Claims (Thursday 14:30)