Investing.com - The dollar remained broadly supported near 12-year highs against the other major currencies on Friday, despite the release of disappointing U.S. inflation data as investors eyed additional U.S. reports due later in the day.
Official data showed that U.S. consumer price inflation fell 0.4% last month, in line with expectations and after a 0.3% decline in November.
Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, was flat in December, compared to expectations for a 0.1% rise, after a 0.1% uptick the previous month.
Market participants were eyeing U.S. industrial production and consumer sentiment data due later in the trading session for further indications on the strength of the country's economic recovery after a string of mixed reports were released on Thursday.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.36% to 92.84, close to Thursday's 12-year peaks of 93.15.
USD/CHF advanced 3.84% to 0.8732, off lows of 0.7360 hit on Thursday when the pair plummeted more than 11%, while EUR/CHF climbed 3.57% to trade at 1.0128, off the previous session's lows of 0.8204.
The Swiss National Bank shocked markets on Thursday by scrapping the 1.20 per euro exchange rate floor it imposed in September 2011, in a bid to stave off deflation and prevent the continued appreciation of the safe-haven franc.
The central bank also cut rates to minus 0.75%, from minus 0.25% and lowered its target range for the three-month Libor to minus 1.25% to minus 0.25%, from minus 0.75% to 0.25%.
Earlier Friday, official data showed that Swiss retail sales fell at an annualized rate of 1.2% in November, confounding expectations for a 1.1% rise, after an uptick of 0.3% the previous month.
Meanwhile, EUR/USD dropped 0.43% to 1.1581, re-approaching Thursday's 11-year lows of 1.1567.
The euro was hit after official data earlier showed that consumer price inflation in the euro zone fell 0.1% in December, in line with market expectations, after a 0.2% decline in November.
The bloc's CPI rose at an annualized rate of 0.2% last month, unchanged from November.
Core CPI in the euro zone, which excludes food, energy, alcohol and tobacco, rose 0.4% in December, after a 0.1% downtick the previous month.
The data fuelled further concerns over persistently low levels of inflation in the euro area. The European Central Bank targets an inflation rate of close to, but just below 2%.
The dollar remained higher against the safe-haven yen, with USD/JPY up 0.47% to 116.68, off one-month lows of 115.85 hit overnight, while GBP/USD held steady at 1.5172.
The commodity-linked currencies were broadly weaker. AUD/USD edged down 0.17% to 0.8200 and NZD/USD slid 0.42% to trade at 0.7791. USD/CAD hit more than five-year highs of 1.2046 before retracing to 1.2021, up 0.55% for the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment