Currency Note US Dollar

US Dollar weakens following a raft of poor data

By Ricky Bean February 20th, 2015

It was another tough start to the week for the US Dollar, which saw further losses against the majority of its peers in the absence of any data released due to the President’s Day bank holiday.

The business week officially started on Tuesday, with weaker-than-expected manufacturing and housing data. Wednesday followed suit with one weak data set after another, with producer inflation, more housing data and industrial production figures sliding against previous figures. Due to the industrial production slide some banks re-forecasted their predictions for US growth in the first quarter of this year downwards, which added further pressure to the US dollar.

Wednesday evening saw the release of the US Federal Reserve meeting minutes, which highlighted that only a small minority of central bank members feel that interest rates should go up soon, with the majority looking to hold off further to ensure the US economy is on the right track.

Thursday was a much better day for the US, and tried to give the greenback some much needed relief with the release of positive unemployment claims, which increased investor confidence that an interest rate rise could happen in June this year. This positivity didn’t last long as shortly after we saw the release of manufacturing data which showed a stronger decline than forecasted.

Today we see the release of the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which is expected to show a decline in the manufacturing sector following the previous manufacturing indicators, which have reported weaker-than-expected figures.