020 7898 0500This had been a relatively quite week for the US dollar until Thursday when data releases disappointed resulting in it losing ground against both sterling and the euro.
Quite a few Federal Reserve members offered their insight into the likelihood of a potential interest rate rise this week. The general consensus from Federal Reserve members seems to be that the US needs to raise the interest rate, and it is now a question of when rather than if. Fisher and Plosser were very hawkish with their prediction, both wanting an early rise compared with the current forecasted mid-2015 rise – however there is not much overall support behind this.
In terms of data, the Growth Domestic product estimate indication was released on Tuesday, and the Crude Oil inventories on Wednesday; these were both positive figures. Thursday was the busiest day of the week in terms of releases, but both the core retail sales and unemployment claims data were very weak and worse-than-expected and resulted in weakness for the dollar against the majority of its peers.
Another quiet day is expected for today, with the release of Consumer Confidence data, which has been on the rise for 6 consecutive months.
