USD/CHF stays in the negative territory after failing to break above 0.9000
- USD/CHF is posting modest daily losses on Thursday.
- US Dollar Index struggles to stage a convincing rebound.
- Initial Jobless Claims in US rose to 861K last week.
The USD/CHF pair gained more than 70 pips on Wednesday and fluctuated in a tight range a little below 0.9000 on Thursday. With the greenback struggling to find demand, however, the pair started to edge lower and was last seen losing 0.21% on the day at 0.8967.
DXY remains depressed after mixed US data
The US Dollar Index, which tracks the USD's performance against a basket of six major currencies, rose above 91.00 on Wednesday but lost its traction. However, the cautious market mood suggests that the USD could regather its strength in the second half of the day. At the moment, the S&P 500 Futures are down 0.8% on the day and a sharp decline in the US stocks after the opening bell could lift DXY and help USD/CHF retrace its decline.
Earlier in the day, the data published by the US Department of Labor showed that Initial Jobless Claims rose to 861K in the week ending February 13 and came in much worse than the market expectation of 765K. Other data revealed that Housing Starts in January declined by 6% but Building Permits rose by 10.4% in the same period.
On Friday, Industrial Production data from Switzerland will be looked upon for fresh impetus ahead of the IHS Markit's January preliminary Services and Manufacturing PMI data from the US.