Last week was a bumpy ride for the U.S Dollar after the release of several economic data points such as the CB consumer Confidence, New Home Sales, Durable Goods, Unemployment Claims, and Core PCE Price Index.
The bears managed to come out on top, causing the Dollar Index, which is measured against a basket of currencies, to drop by 0.15%.
This week, the spotlight is set on the Fed as they are scheduled to release their latest interest rate decision on Wednesday at 22:00 GMT+4. The market expects an increase of 25 basis points, which would signify the presence of sticky inflation in the market.
On Friday, the USD/JPY pair witnessed an increase of 0.73%, due to the Bank of Japan (BoJ) which decided to maintain its rate as is at -0.10%, pushing the Japanese Yen lower against the U.S. Dollar.
Last week, the AUD/USD pair witnessed a decline of 1.22%, indicating a decline in the Australian Dollar against the greenback.
The Consumer Price Index (YoY), an inflation indicator, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics declined from 6.8% to 6.3%, indicating easing inflationary pressures in the U.S.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is set to release its Cash Rate on Tuesday at 8:30 AM GMT+4. The market expects that the rate will remained unchanged at 3.60%, since the RBA anticipates a further fall in inflation which would not require any additional rate hikes.
The EUR/USD pair rose 0.26% last week after the European Central Bank (ECB) stated plans to increase rates by 25-basis point hike at its next May meeting.
Last week major U.S. indices such as NASDAQ, Dow Jones, and the S&P 500 witnessed an increase of 2.09%, 1.03%, and 1.05% respectively.
Impressive earnings reports from companies such as Meta Inc., Microsoft Corp, Alphabet Inc., and others have been a significant factor in these positive stock market moves.
Last week, gold prices gained 0.43%, reaching a high of $2008.71 per ounce. This rise came after fears of rate hikes causing a recession and slowing down the economy, thus increasing the demand for the safe-haven asset.
The Energy Information Administration in the U.S. indicated an increase in both Crude Oil and Natural Gas inventories last week.
As a result, Crude oil witnessed a decline of 1.76%, this could be due to the combination of rate hikes set by the Fed and slow economic growth in China, one of the biggest crude oil importers.
On the other hand, Natural Gas managed to rise by 1.48%, a result of the storage data which increased from 75B to 79B, which were not far from expected.
The content published above has been prepared by CFI for informational purposes only and should not be considered as investment advice. Any view expressed does not constitute a personal recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell. The information provided does not have regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation, and needs of any specific person who may receive it, and is not held out as independent investment research and may have been acted upon by persons connected with CFI. Market data is derived from independent sources believed to be reliable, however, CFI makes no guarantee of its accuracy or completeness, and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of its use by recipients.