US dollar support continued into this morning, with the USD continuing to distance itself from 2nd February lows. The US Dollar index, measuring the strength of the US dollar against a basket of other currencies, is currently trading at the price of 100.90 after hitting monthly lows of 99.23 earlier this month.
Support for the greenback is primarily being attributed to President’s Trump comments last Thursday, where he suggested that some significant changes to the terms of tax would follow in the next two to three weeks.
The USD was also aided by a succesfully concluded US-Japan weekend summit, whereby succesful implies that the meeting ended up with no confrontations especially with regards to currency issues.
Overnight data from Japan showed that the 4th Quarter preliminary reading for Annualized GDP was 1% compared to a previous 1.4% and an expected 1.1%. USDJPY’s downtrend for 2017 is experiencing a small setback as the USDJPY recovers high ground reflecting the earlier mentioned support for the USD. USDJPY has managed to take on the 20 DMA at 113.37 today at open, opening at 113.54 after Friday’s close at 113.22. USDJPY is currently at 113.85.
Later this week we have EZ and German GDP, US CPI & Retail Sales amongst the data scheduled for this week’s economic docket. Headlines will however also go to the US Fed Chair’s semi-annual testimony to the House Panel on Wednesday and to the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting at the end of week.
