USD/CHF hammered down back closer to multi-week lows

   “¢   Reviving safe-haven demand benefits CHF and prompts some aggressive selling.
   “¢   The USD fails to capitalize on the overnight bounce and does little to lend any support.
   “¢   Market participants now look forward to the US economic data for some fresh impetus.

The USD/CHF pair remained heavily offered through the early European session and is currently placed at the lower end of its daily trading range, around the 0.9970 region.

The pair failed to capitalize on the overnight goodish bounce from three-week lows, rather met with some aggressive supply on Thursday and was being weighed down by a fresh wave of global risk-aversion trade. Investors turned cautious in wake of not so optimistic trade-related comments by the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Wednesday, saying that it was too early to predict an outcome in U.S.-China trade negotiations.  

Adding to renewed uncertainty over the progress in US-China trade talks, today’s dismal Chinese manufacturing PMI print for February resurfaced concerns about weakening global growth, which coupled with escalating geopolitical tensions between India and Pakistan further dented investors’ risk-sentiment and provided a strong boost to the Swiss Franc’s perceived safe-haven status.  

The risk-off mood was evident from a sea of red across global equity markets and reinforced by a sharp fall in the US Treasury bond yields, which failed to assist the US Dollar to build on the previous session’s rebound from multi-week lows and further aggravated the selling pressure surrounding the major.  

It would now be interesting to see if the pair is able to find any buying interest at lower levels or the current slide marks the resumption of the recent rejection slide from the key 1.0100 hurdle. Market participants now look forward to the US economic docket, highlighting the release of Q4 GDP growth figures and the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation – core PCE, for some fresh impetus.

Technical levels to watch