Today, the US dollar was hurt by negative economic data yet again as the consumer confidence deteriorated unexpectedly this month. The greenback is attempting to hold against the Japanese yen but lost ground to other most-traded peers, including the euro and the Great Britain pound.
Conference Board reported that the consumer confidence index fell to 95.2 in April from 101.4 in March while experts promised an increase to 102.6. Other macroeconomic indicators were not as bad. The Richmond Fed manufacturing gauge improved (though missed forecasts a little) and consumer confidence index was actually better than expectations. Still, markets preferred to focus on the bad piece of data (which also came out the last).
Meanwhile, traders are waiting for policy decision from the Federal Reserve that will be announced tomorrow. While nobody expects from the Fed to make any changes to its policy just yet, the statement from the central bank has potential to shake the market nevertheless. Speculators will be trying to guess the future actions of the Fed based on the wording of the statement and take positions accordingly.
EUR/USD rallied from 1.0890 to 1.0982 as of 17:51 GMT today. GBP/USD climbed from 1.5229 to 1.5224. Meanwhile, USD/JPY was at 118.90, near the opening level of 119.02.
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