USD/CHF recovers modestly from multi-year lows, stays below 0.8900

• USD/CHF slumped to its lowest level since January 2015.
• US Dollar Index remains depressed below 91.00 on Thursday.

The USD/CHF pair plunged to its lowest level in nearly five years at 0.8852 on Thursday but staged a rebound during the American trading hours. As of writing, the pair was down 0.22% on the day at 0.8872.

USD valuation drives USD/CHF movements

The selling pressure surrounding the greenback during the first half of the day caused USD/CHF to push lower. After the European Central Bank (ECB) announced its policy decisions, the EUR/USD pair rose to 1.2160 area and made it difficult for the USD to attract investors. Reflecting the broad-based USD weakness, the US Dollar Index (DXY) dropped to a daily low of 90.66.

In the second half of the day, the DXY started to edge higher and allowed USD/CHF to pull away from lows. Major equity indexes in the US are having a difficult time gaining traction amid conflicting headlines surrounding US stimulus talks and helping the USD find some demand. At the moment, the DXY is still down 0.18% on the day at 90.93.

Earlier in the day, the data from the US showed that the weekly Initial Jobless Claims rose by 137,000 to 853,000 during the week ending December 5th. This reading missed the market expectation of 725,000 by a wide margin but failed to trigger a significant market reaction. 

On Friday, the Producer Price Index (PPI) and the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index will be featured in the US economic docket.

Technical levels to watch for