MW: Dollar up vs. major rivals ahead of U.S. housing
By Saumya Vaishampayan and Carla Mozee, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The dollar advanced against key rivals Friday and appeared poised for a small weekly gain, with investors gearing up for the release of U.S. housing data.
The ICE dollar index DXY +0.10% , which tracks the U.S. unit against six other currencies, rose to 80.367 from 80.280 late Thursday. The WSJ Dollar index XX:BUXX +0.16% , an alternate gauge of the greenback’s strength against a broader basket of rivals, rose to 73.73 from 73.62.
The ICE dollar index was on track for a gain of 0.3% from last Friday.
The dollar moved modestly higher against its major counterparts during Thursday’s session in North America, even as a round of mixed data highlighted questions about economic growth.U.S. stocks rose as well, setting aside downbeat economic updates from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, China and Europe.
It appears the market, “at least for now, is not too concerned about the recent run of disappointing U.S. releases, especially given the element of bad weather,” said Yau, “though one might start to wonder whether this will remain true if more tier-1 data goes in this direction.”
Extremely cold weather that kept a grip on parts of the U.S. this winter likely weighed on sales of existing homes in January. Data due at 10 a.m. Eastern are expected to show a decline to an annual rate of 4.65 million on a seasonally adjusted basis.
U.K. retail sales for January fell 1.5% from the previous month. The Office of National Statistics, which released the data Friday, noted “particularly strong” month-on-month growth in December. Retail sales in January rose 4.3% from a year earlier. The British pound GBPUSD +0.12% rose to $1.6679 from $1.6656 late Thursday.
Meanwhile, the euro EURUSD -0.07% slipped to $1.3710 from $1.3721.
Against the Japanese yen, the U.S. dollar USDJPY +0.27% rose to ÂĄ102.46 from ÂĄ102.33 late Thursday. The Australian dollar AUDUSD -0.53% pulled back to 89.92 U.S. cents from 90.18 cents in the prior session.
The greenback rose against the South African rand and Mexican peso, but fell against the Turkish lira on Friday.
