The US Dollar (USD) gathered bullish momentum and outperformed its rivals on Thursday. The USD Index, which tracks the USD's valuation against a basket of six major currencies, continued to move higher on Friday morning and remained in positive territory on the weekly chart. The economic calendar will not feature any high-impact data releases on Friday, and investors will be watching comments from Federal Reserve officials and US President Donald Trump.
The USD benefited from the cautious market mood and upbeat data releases on Thursday. After rebounding on Wednesday, major equity indexes in the US ended the day in the red. The US Department of Labor reported that there were 223,000 Initial Jobless Claims in the week ending March 15, slightly below market expectations of 224,000. Other data from the US showed that Existing Home Sales increased by 4.2% in February, following a 4.7% decline in January. Additionally, the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index came in at 12.5 in March, beating analysts' estimates of 8.5. In European morning, US stock futures traded flat on the day and the USD Index consolidated its gains near 104.00.
US President Trump once again called on the Fed to "do the right thing and cut rates" in a social media post on Friday morning.
EUR/USD fell around 0.5% and closed for the second straight day in negative territory on Thursday. The currency pair struggled to bounce back in European morning and traded below 1.0850. Later in the day, the European Commission will release preliminary data on Consumer Confidence for March.
The Bank of England (BoE) announced on Thursday that it left its policy interest rate unchanged at 4.5%, as widely anticipated. Only one policymaker voted in favor of a 25 basis point (bps) rate cut, against market expectations of two policymakers. GBP/USD failed to gain traction after the BoE event and ended the day slightly lower. The pair remained on the back foot early Friday and traded below 1.2950.
Data from Japan showed that the National Consumer Price Index rose by 3.7% year-on-year in February, after rising by 4% in January. Core CPI rose by 3% in the same period, above market expectations of 2.9%. After closing the day almost unchanged on Thursday, USD/JPY turned higher in the Asian session on Friday and was last seen up around 0.4% on the day above 149.30.
Gold corrected lower after hitting a fresh record high above $3,050 and posted small losses on Thursday. XAU/USD continued to slide on Friday and traded near $3,030.(Newsmaker23)
Source: FXstreet
