Forex: USD/CHF – USD eases ahead of US CPI data

iNVEZZ.com Tuesday July 16th: The dollar traded lower against the Swiss franc in today’s Asian session, relative to yesterday’s highs above 0.95.

Ahead of the European opening the pair had stabilized around 0.9480, but after the session started the franc edged even higher, with the quote falling sharply to 0.9419.

Lacking home-grown news, the Swiss currency took vicarious support from strong Eurozone CPI updates.
According to Eurostat, the Eurozone Consumer Price Index for June y/y came out as a rise of 1.6 percent, matching expectations and up from May’s 1.4 percent. The month-on-month reading was unchanged at 0.1 percent, again matching expectations. Core-CPI, which excludes food, energy, alcohol and tobacco, costs, was steady at 1.2 percent for June y/y, also in line with forecasts.

The USD is awaiting a raft of economic updates, beginning with the Consumer Price Index in its various manifestations, scheduled for 13:30 BST, and to be followed at 14.00 BST by the Redbook Index, US Net TIC Flows and industrial production.
Traders will then be closely monitoring soon-to-be-retired US Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony on monetary policy at a Congressional committee tomorrow. The burning question remains when ‘tapering’ of the Fed’s $85 billion month bond-buying program will get under way. Feeble US updates in the last little while have fuelled fears that Bernanke’s bullish statements of a month ago are taking on a ‘wishful thinking’ tone.