USD gains as inflationary pressures remain

The US Dollar strengthened against a number of its counterparts remaining at rather high levels, as the markets maintain their worries for the Fed’s intentions regarding its QE program. Over the past week a number of Fed officials had expressed themselves openly in favor of tapering the Fed’s QE program rather sooner than later, showing a deepening reef among the Fed’s policymakers ahead of the Jackson Hole summit near the end of August. The greenback was boosted also by inflation data for producers which accelerated for the month of July, reaching record high levels, implying that inflationary pressures are still present for the US economy as should producers continue to experience increase in the prices of raw materials, they may pass them on to the end price of their products, thus boosting inflation for consumers once again. Please note that the weekly initial jobless claims figure dropped again implying that the US employment market tightened for the first week of August. Today we may see the market’s attention turning to the release of the preliminary US Un. Michigan consumer sentiment for August.

The USD Index rose a bit yesterday, yet remained between the 93.20 (R1) resistance line and the 92.75 (S1) support line (S2). We tend to maintain a bias for a sideways movement for the index for the time being, as the market has to decide on the direction of the index’s next leg. Please note that the RSI indicator below our 4-hour chart is slightly above the reading of 50, which may imply that the bulls may have a slight advantage. Should bid for the USD actually prevail, we may see the index breaking the 93.20 (R1) resistance line and aim for the 93.65 (R2) resistance level. Should a selling interest be displayed by the market, we may see the pair breaking the 92.75 (S1) support line and aim for the 92.30 (R2) level.

Pound retreats against the USD

The pound dropped against the USD yesterday but also against the common currency and the Japanese Yen, implying a weakness on the GBP side. Please note that the pound dropped despite data showing that the UK economy expanded in Q2 and escaped the negative territory, yet the markets seem to expect that the BoE despite all the confidence expressed, may be reluctant to proceed with any tightening of its monetary policy. It should be noted that in the past weeks the pound may have outperformed other currencies given that the pandemic eased its grip on the UK expressed in the lower number of Covid cases and high vaccination rates, which allowed the UK government to lift most of its social-distancing rules. Given the lack of high impact financial releases from the UK today, we expect fundamentals to be the main drivers for the pound’s direction and besides BoE’s monetary policy we would highlight also the path of the pandemic in the UK and Brexit as possible issues to watch out for.

The bearish tendencies for cable had the upper hand yesterday as the pair broke the 1.3845 (R1) support line, now turned to resistance. We to maintain a bearish outlook for the pair given that the RSI indicator below our 4-hour chart is below the reading of 50, which may imply that the bears have the initiative at the moment albeit some tendencies for stabilisation seem also to be present for the pair’s price action. Should the bears actually take over, we may see cable aiming if not breaking the 1.3670 (S1) line. Should the bulls take over, we may see the pair breaking the 1.3845 (R1) line and take aim of the 1.3990 (R2) level.

カナダドルはやや下落

Today during the European session we get France’s and Sweden’s inflation rates for July. In the American session we note the release of the preliminary US University of Michigan consumer sentiment for August and the US Baker Hughes oil rig count for past week. During Monday’s Asian session we get Japan’s GDP rates for Q2 and China’s industrial output and retail sales for July.

USD Index 4時間チャート