USD/CHF climbs to 3-week tops, closer to mid-0.9800s

• The USD remains on the defensive on dismal US PMI prints for July.
• Reviving safe-haven demand underpins CHF and adds to the selling bias.
• The focus now shifts to Powell’s scheduled speech at Jackson Hole.

The USD/CHF pair finally broke out of its daily consolidative range and jumped to near three-week tops, around mid-0.9800s in the last hour, albeit quickly retreated few pips thereafter.
 
The pair built on its recent recovery move from yearly lows and continued gaining positive traction for the second consecutive session on Thursday – also marking the fifth day of a positive move in the previous six – though a combination of negative forces kept a lid on any strong follow-through.

Weaker USD/cautions mood capped gains

With investors looking past Wednesday’s not so dovish FOMC meeting minutes, the US Dollar witnessed some fresh selling through the early North-American session and turned out to be one of the key factors capping any meaningful up-move for the major.
 
The already weaker greenback was further weighed down by Thursday’s disappointing release of flash manufacturing/services PMI prints for the month of July and the US President Donald Trump’s latest criticism over the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy stance.
 
Adding to this, the prevalent cautious mood around equity markets – amid growing concerns about US-China trade disputes and slowing global economic growth – underpinned the Swiss Franc’s safe-haven demand and further collaborated towards capping gains.
 
It will now be interesting to see if the pair is able to attract any fresh buying as the market focus now shifts to the Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s scheduled speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium on Friday, which might trigger significant market volatility.

Technical levels to watch