DXY holds above 98.00 amid quiet US data – ING

The Dollar Index (DXY) remains supported above 98.00 as recent US data and Fed commentary have had little impact, with attention shifting to today’s ECB meetings for potential near-term direction, ING’s FX analyst Chris Turner notes.

Fed’s Waller signals caution, US Dollar mixed

“The DXY dollar index remains supported above 98.00. Events this week have so far had little meaningful impact on the dollar, including the speech from the Fed’s Chris Waller yesterday. He was generally dovish, citing the soft labour market and outlining that the policy rate was still 50-100bp above neutral. Yet he was in no rush to cut rates and the chance of a January Fed rate cut is still priced at just 25%. We favour a cut in March.”

“Unless the weekly jobless claims number spikes today, we doubt the US data will move the dollar much at all. That includes a reading on the delayed CPI data, where the November headline figure is expected to be 3.1% year-on-year, feeding into the sticky inflation narrative. Yet that looks unlikely to prompt a major re-assessment of the Fed trajectory.”

“We suspect DXY will be dragged around by the European central bank meetings today. Some downside risk to European currencies could mean that DXY corrects back to the 98.80 area.”