Dollar Stronger After Less Dovish Fed

It’s been a bit of a disjointed week for most of the major currencies, but yesterday we at last saw some decent moves and opportunities for traders. We’d seen a bit of dollar appreciation across the board in the first couple of sessions of the day but a very poor CPI and Retail Sales print knocked the dollar considerably early in the US session, taking the dollar index down 50 points in no time.

Of course the main event was later in the session in the form of the FOMC and we did see a move back to the topside straight away to wipe out the earlier losses. We did get the 25 bps hike that we’ve been expecting since the March meeting but the mover was the rhetoric which we got from the Fed which was much more upbeat than most of the market expected, especially after recent inflation data, as they kept their funds rate projections pretty much unchanged.

Looking ahead to today’s trading and I think we will see a continuation of the markets reaction to the Fed over the next few days with a leaning towards the topside in the dollar. However, it’s a full day of data releases ahead with both the Swiss National Bank and the Bank Of England’s rate announcement’s due in the London session.

First up though we have Australian employment data which should provide interest for traders after the Aussie eventually broke out of it’s recent doldrums last night. Later in the day we have the UK Retail Sales data sandwiched in between the two Central Bank releases which are then followed by a host of 2nd tier data in the US.

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