Dollar fights back – weekly roundup

The dollar isn’t giving up so easily. This sent some currencies down, while others are stuck in a range. Bernanke’s speech at the beginning of the week was quite confusing, but his mention of the currency markets moved the them. Only the Yen gained against the greenback. Let’s see which currencies did better than others.

The US dollar index made a nice rise this week, moving from 74.82 to 75.66,  somewhat  stopping the  landslide. The comeback of the greenback, that was very strong two weeks ago, was probably more than a short episode:

1. EUR/USD: The Euro is stuck in a range between 1.48 to 1.5050. This range trading has been going on for more than two weeks. The return of Europe to growth doesn’t push the currency higher. This week it lost about 100 pips, sending it to 1.4844 at the time of writing.
2. GBP/USD: The Pound had a good start to the week, which sent it as high as 1.6876. Despite rising prices in  Britain, the Pound made a sharp U-turn, and is about to close the week at 1.6486, a weekly loss of over 250 pips. Back to normal for the Pound.
3. USD/JPY: The Japanese Yen also enjoys fear, and it made a weekly gain against the dollar, so it made big gains against the crosses. GBP/JPY had a terrible week. All in all, USD/JPY is about to close at 88.63, a loss of of about 70 pips.
4. USD/CHF: The strong Swiss economy bounced off parity once again, being 47 pips from it this time. But the dollar’s strength swept the pair back up to 1.0191, a weekly gain of 100 pips.
5. USD/CAD: The Canadian dollar, which was last week’s big winner, was also hurt by the greenback’s move. USD/CAD broke the 1.06 resistance line that was broken to the downside just last week.  All in all, USD/CAD rose to 1.0724, about 235 pips higher. The Canadian dollar is not the big loser of this week, but was seriously hurt.
6. AUD/USD:  The Australian economy enjoys a high interest rate, growth in employment, and lots of positive figures. Well, this week it lost its shine,  and got out of the range of the past two weeks. At 0.9138, the Aussie lost over 200 pips in a bad week.
7. NZD/USD: Also the kiwi lost about over 200 pips. If we look at the percentage rate, it’s significantly more than its neighbor, the Aussie. At 0.7232, the kiwi also lost a lot o its shine.

That’s it for this week. Weekly  forecasts will be published towards the opening of the new week. Have a great weekend.