Currency Note US Dollar

Events increase likelihood of Pre-Christmas “taper”

By Ricky Bean December 13th, 2013

US dollar markets this week centred once again around increased speculation as to when we could see the Federal Reserve taper its quantitative easing program. The US dollar struggled at the start this week with little data to support the previous week’s gains, starting off with the first drop in five days against sterling. Positive negotiations over next year’s budget that would reduce the severity of automatic spending cuts gave investors hope that the tapering could be seen this side of Christmas. Yesterday, sentiment increased that we could see the central bank taper at next week’s monetary policy meeting thanks to retail sales figures beating expectations helping the US dollar to rally, despite the unemployment claims failing to meet market estimates. The main economic release form the US today will be the Producer Price Index, however it is the growing speculation surrounding the potential tapering of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program that is likely to cause the biggest movement across the global foreign exchange market. Call your trader now for the latest US dollar rates, as we move towards next week’s Federal Reserve meeting.