By CountingPips.com
The U.S. Federal Open Market Committee concluded its monetary policy meeting by holding the U.S. interest rate steady at its record low level. The FOMC had last cut the interest rate to the target range of 0 percent to 0.25 percent in December 
and today’s decision to keep the rate unchanged was widely expected by market forecasts.
On the economy, the Fed statement said that, “Conditions in financial markets have generally improved in recent months. Household spending has shown further signs of stabilizing but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Businesses are cutting back on fixed investment and staffing but appear to be making progress in bringing inventory stocks into better alignment with sales.”
Interest rates will likely not move for a while as the Fed statement said that despite “the pace of economic contraction is slowing,” interest rates would probably be at or near the zero level for “an extended period.”
In other U.S. news today, durable goods orders increased more than expected in May according to a report released by the U.S. Commerce Department today. Durable goods orders in the United States advanced by 1.8 percent in May to a total of $163.9 billion after increasing by a revised 1.8 percent in April. Today’s data beat market forecasts that had been expecting that durable goods orders would fall by approximately 0.9 percent for the month.
New orders for durable goods excluding transportation gained by 1.1 percent in May following a revised increase of 0.4 percent in April. Market forecasts were predicting a decrease of 0.5 percent in durable goods minus transportation.
Also released out of the US was data on home sales. New Home Sales declined unexpectedly in May according to the Department of Commerce today. Purchases of new single family homes rose to an annual rate of 342,000 in May, a 0.6 percent decline following April’s 2.7 percent revised increase. On an annual basis, May’s rate of new homes sold is 32.8 percent lower than the May 2008 level.
May’s results were worse than market forecasts which were expecting a 2.3 percent increase in sales for the month for an annual rate of 360,000 new homes sold.
US Dollar higher in Forex Trading today.
The U.S. dollar has been mostly higher today in forex trading against the other major currencies. The dollar has been stronger versus the euro, Canadian dollar, Swiss franc, New Zealand dollar and the British pound while trading almost unchanged against the Australian dollar and the Japanese yen.
The euro has fallen versus the dollar today as the EUR/USD has declined from its 1.4088 opening(00:00 GMT) to trading at 1.3936 in the late afternoon of the U.S. trading session at 4:10pm EST according to currency data from Oanda.
The British pound has fallen today as the GBP/USD has declined from its 1.6463 opening exchange rate to trading at 1.6431 usd per gbp. The dollar has been unchanged versus the Japanese yen and trading at 95.56 after opening at the day at the 95.54 exchange rate.
The dollar has increased today versus the Canadian loonie as the USD/CAD trades at the exchange rate of 1.1549 after opening the day at 1.1470.
The dollar has spiked against the Swiss franc as the USD/CHF trades at 1.0977 after opening at 1.0662 today on possible currency intervention by the Swiss National Bank. The dollar has been higher against New Zealand dollar as the NZD/USD trades at 0.6392 today after opening at the exchange rate of 0.6406 while the AUD/USD is almost unchanged at 0.7968 after a 0.7956 opening.
USD/CAD Chart – The US Dollar rises today versus the Canadian Dollar in forex trading and advanced above the 55 hour moving average (purple).
