US Dollar back on top as Markets await the July FOMC — North American Mid-Week Market Update

After last week's beginning push down in the US Dollar, bringing in some fresh air for Forex majors, the rest of the week reversed the action.

The US dollar recovered astonishingly and broke above the 99.00 Psychological level for the first time since the June-end drop in the Dollar Index.

Major pairs have largely corrected after this move, with EUR/USD going from 1.18 to currently trading below 1.15. Even the Swissie, which was close to record highs against the USD, is now being sold off.

Today's FOMC Meeting will be essential for determining the future course of action, particularly as stronger GDP and Employment Data prompt the Fed to maintain its rates at the current 4.50% level.

In the meantime, this ongoing rally in the USD has shifted financial flows quite largely, with the continuing geographic trend of movement in the FX space – European, Asian-Pacific, and North-American currencies are moving in tandem.

The ongoing rally has started to hurt some of this year's best-performing assets, like Gold, Bitcoin and some global Equity indices, as Participants rush to buy back their heavily positioned USD selloffs.

Read More: A look at US bonds ahead of the July FOMC rate decision

You can take a look at the past week's Mid-week update to see how the dynamic has changed and how fast it happened.

US Equity indices are still overperforming other global indices, but the progress is slowing a little bit ahead of the key events that markets are anticipating.

Let's see how the most recent Trade deal news will affect the flows, with the August 1st Deadline approaching fast.

In our most recent US Dollar analysis, we observed how the past week correction was resembling closely to a break-retest formation, looking very bullish for the US Dollar.

Its demand has suddenly flew upwards, particularly with the streak of positive data which just keeps surprising markets.

Observe the reactions on the DXY to the 99.40 level, acting as a magnet for prices ahead of the Rate Decision.

Also, keep a close eye on the 99.00 handle and its pivot which serves as an immediate measure for bull/bear domination of the price action.

As seen throughout the introduction, the Dollar has been rallying consequently against the other majors, particularly against the European currencies.

It's surprising to see the JPY hold so well however, with markets putting the foot of the pedal ahead of tonight's Bank of Japan Rate Decision after the yen struggled quite a lot throughout July.

The performance for the Loonie has been a less impressive compared to the one from the USD – The Greenback really took off on the back of its CAD neighbour.

You also can notice the performance of the JPY throughout this comparative chart.

Since our last week look at the North-American pair, the action did materialize into a break-retest with USDCAD breaking above its 1.3750 Range highs – point which now just turned into a longer term pivot Zone.

The impulsive upwards move is now consolidating just above the 1.38 Handle, with this level acting as immediate resistance.

Breaking above would point to a test of the 1.3850 Main resistance.

Rejecting the current levels would look to retest the highs of the range mentioned right before.

This morning's unchanged Bank of Canada Policy Rate hasn't changed much to the ongoing course of action, and the struggling US-Canada trade talks is not helping the Loonie too much.

This week still has a lot to give for both US and Canada data, with the US Core PCE and Canadian GDP releasing tomorrow morning at 8:30 (click on the image to check the expectations).


Friday trading could be even bigger between US and Canadian PMIs, the August NFP release for the Employment data of the prior month and finally the University-of-Michigan 10:00 AM release.


Safe Trades ahead of the FOMC Meeting!