The dollar continued to mount a comeback this afternoon, surging against a basket of currencies following a trio of decent figures.
The greenback had got off to a good start this morning after North Korea declared it was delaying its missile strike near Guam, and its positive run only continued this afternoon following a US data dump. Retail sales in the country jumped from June’s revised 0.3% to a better than forecast 0.6% in July; the Empire State manufacturing index far surpassed expectations to spike to a near 3 year high of 25.2; and the import prices reading rose from -0.2% to 0.1% month-on-month.
This meant cable’s losses increased to 0.8% (the pound was also hurt by the unchanged UK inflation figure), while against the yen the dollar jumped by 0.9%. It even doubled its gains against the euro, clawing back 0.6% off of its summer rival. This muscular growth did hinder the Dow Jones, however, which ended up failing to cross 22000 in the face of the currency’s quest for forex-vengeance.
Normally such pain for the pound and euro would lead to a big win for their respective indices – however, that wasn’t the case this Tuesday. The FTSE could only manage a 15 point increase, hampered by a commodity sector in a deep shade of red, while the DAX actually slipped 0.1% despite a solid German GDP reading. Only the CAC really stretched its legs, jumping 0.3%.