Video Length: 00:07:35
The past 24-hours haven’t been kind to the US Dollar, setting up a shaky start to the final month of 2017. The influences are two-fold, given that the Federal Reserve has been removed as a near-term influence on price action: after all, Fed funds are pricing in a 100% chance of a 25-bps rate hike later this month (the FOMCmeets on December 13), as they have been since October 26.
On the data side, recent US economic figures have proven choppy and inconsistent, resulting in the Atlanta Fed GDPNow Q4’17 US growth forecast being dropped from +3.4% to +2.7% yesterday.
On the news side, tax reform hit a major hurdle as Congressional Republicans were forced to go back to the drawing board following the release of non-partisan analysis showing that the tax bill would blow a $1 trillion hole in the deficit – even when accounting for growth via ‘dynamic scoring.’
All in all, this leaves the US Dollar in an uneasy position heading into the first full week of December. As is typical during the first full week of any month, the economic calendar is saturated with meaningful data releases that could easily help change the increasingly negative tone around the greenback – or, in the case of a disappointing November US Nonfarm Payrolls report next Friday, for example, the data could amplify a technically unsound dollar.
