The US dollar retreated across the board after the release of US economic data. USD/JPY dropped from 120.74 to 120.32, trimming daily gains. Despite falling more than 30 pips in minutes, the pair is still up 0.45% from the level it had at the beginning of the day. ISM declines but remains above 50 The ISM Manufacturing index dropped in December to 55.5 from 58.7 in November; the decline was larger than expected as consensus was 57.5. James Knightley, Senior Economist at ING affirms that despite today’s numbers, the index still suggests that the US economy is growing strongly, “roughly at trend of around 3%, which is well above the rate seen in other mature developed economies".