By Michael Kitchen and Saumya Vaishampayan, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The U.S. dollar edged higher against most rivals on Tuesday after a slew of economic data, while Australia’s dollar dropped sharply after comments from the nation’s central-bank governor.
The euro EURUSD -0.22% fell to $1.3764 from $1.3805 late Monday, while the British pound GBPUSD -0.48% depreciated to $1.6072 from $1.6155.
The dollar USDJPY +0.26% edged up to ÂĄ97.98 from ÂĄ97.65 on Monday.
September U.S. retail sales edged down a seasonally adjusted 0.1%, the first decline in six months, on the back of a slowdown in auto purchases. Excluding the auto industry, retail sales rose 0.4% last month, suggesting a pace that’s not fast enough to push the economy into higher gear. Economists had expected flat sales from a year earlier and a 0.4% increase excluding autos, according to a poll by MarketWatch.
Separately, data released Tuesday showed U.S. wholesale prices dipped in September, with the U.S. producer price index declining a seasonally adjusted 0.1%. Core wholesale prices, excluding food and energy, rose 0.1%, indicating that underlying inflation remains restrained. Economists had expected a 0.3% increase in PPI and a 0.1% gain in the core PPI, according to a MarketWatch poll.
The consumer confidence index is expected to fall to 75.0 from last month’s 79.7, according to the average expectation of economists surveyed by MarketWatch.
They said the Federal Reserve’s policy decision on Wednesday, which is expected to hold off on an anticipated slowing of monetary stimulus, would also be a factor. However, they added that the market “may already have priced in softer data and delayed tapering expectations, suggesting that the risk/reward will increasingly turn more U.S.-dollar-positive over the coming weeks.”
The Australian dollar AUDUSD -0.79% , meanwhile, dropped to 94.93 U.S. cents, off from late Monday’s 95.80 U.S. cents, after Reserve Bank of Australia Gov. Glenn Stevens talked the currency down during a speech early Tuesday.
Stevens said the Aussie’s current value was too high, sitting at levels “not supported by Australia’s relative levels of costs and productivity.”
“It seems quite likely that at some point in the future the Australian dollar will be materially lower than it is today,” Stevens said.
The ICE dollar index DXY +0.24% , which tracks the U.S. currency against six others, advanced to 79.502 from 79.242 late Monday in North America. The WSJ Dollar Index XX:BUXX +0.30% , an alternate measure of the greenback, rose to 72.10 from 71.82.
Among the emerging-market currencies, the Indian rupee USDINR -0.11% rose after the central bank hiked its key lending rate by a quarter-percentage point to 7.75% on Tuesday. The dollar fell to 61.456 rupees from 61.61 rupees moments before the Reserve Bank of India’s announcement.
Michael Kitchen is Asia editor for MarketWatch and is based in Los Angeles. You can follow him on Twitter at @KitchenNews.
Saumya Vaishampayan is a MarketWatch reporter based in New York. You can find her on Twitter @saumvaish.
