USD/CHF stays in narrow band above parity ahead of Fed’s rate decision

• US Dollar Index clings to modest gains above 96 on Thursday.
• Unemployment stays unchanged in Switzerland.
• The Fed is scheduled to release its policy statement later today.

After dropping below the critical parity level, the improved market sentiment and a modest rebound witnessed in the greenback helped the pair retrace its losses. As of writing, the pair was trading at 1.0030, adding 0.07% on a daily basis.

The weekly report published by the U.S.  Department of Labor on Thursday showed that  the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims fell to 214,000 in the week ending November 3.  Later in the day, the Fed is going to announce the interest rate decision and publish its monetary policy statement. Although markets don’t expect any changes in the policy, they will look for hints to confirm another 25 bps rate rise in December.

“Our economists believe that the only “drama” about the statement will be around alterations to the Committee’s description of recent economic developments. They note that the statement can continue to see the pace of economic growth and job gains as strong, and can acknowledge that the unemployment rate has declined further,” Deutsche Bank said in a recently published article.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, the data from Switzerland revealed that the unemployment rate in October stayed unchanged at 2.5% to match analysts’ estimate.

Technical levels to consider

The pair could face the first technical support at 1.000 (parity/20-DMA) ahead of 0.9950 (Nov. 7 low) and 0.9870 (50-DMA/100-DMA). On the upside, resistances are located at 1.0050 (Nov. 7 high), 1.0095 (Oct. 31 high) and 1.0120 (Mar. 7, 2017, high).