USD/CHF remains near daily lows around mid-0.97s despite upbeat US data

After closing the first three days of the week with gains and starting the day above the 0.98 mark, the USD/CHF pair came under a broad-based selling pressure on Thursday and eased to mid-0.97s. As of writing, the pair was trading at 0.9753, losing 0.64% on the day.

A weaker market sentiment reflected by the sharp fall witnessed in the major European equity indexes on Thursday seems to be helping the traditional safe havens such as the CHF find demand. At the moment, the German DAX and the UK's FTSE indexes are losing 0.8% and 0.55% respectively.

On the other hand, the greenback is having a difficult time preserving its strength against its peers today with the US Dollar Index edging lower towards the 93 handle. Although the weekly jobless claims plummeted to its lowest level in more than 40 years at 222K and the Philly Fed Manufacturing Index advanced to 27.9 from 23.8, beating the market estimate of 22, the DXY is still down 0.25% on the day at 93.08. Later in the session, the economic calendar won't be offering any data that could impact the price action and the mood surrounding the US stocks could be the next catalyst for the pair.

• US: Weekly initial claims was 222,000, a decrease of 22,000 from previous week
• Philly Fed: Manufacturing firms reported continued growth in October

Technical outlook

With today's retreat, the RSI indicator on the daily graph returned to the 50 region, suggesting that the buyers lost their dominance on the price action. On the upside, 0.9800 (psychological level) could be seen as the initial hurdle ahead of 0.9835 (Oct. 6 high) and 0.9900 (psychological level). On the downside, support could be seen at 0.9680 (20-DMA), 0.9640 (100-DMA) and 0.9600 (psychological level).