The juggernaut that is the US dollar, continued to dominate currency markets again last week, flattening anything that dared to stand in its way, and helped on Friday with the monthly Non Farm Payroll data which came in better than expected at 248,000 against a forecast of 216,000, a dramatic improvement on last months dismal 180,000. In addition, the headline rate also fell from 6.1% to 5.9% helping to push risk assets higher. Whether anyone believes these numbers is irrelevant. We all know that the US unemployment figures are far worse, but this is what we are told and what is reported, and true or false, the market and the FED take note. For the majors, it was another day of heavy selling on Friday, with commodities also under pressure, as the dollar rampaged across the markets surging higher on the US dollar index to close at 86.78 with a wide spread up candle on the daily chart. This was the twelfth week of gains for the dollar as the index moved back into price regions not seen since 2010, and with little resistance ahead, the index looks set to climb further and test the 88.90 level in due course. The question now is how long this bullish momentum is set to continue, and for an answer we move to the currency strength indicator, with the red line on the chart denoting the US dollar. As we can clearly see on the daily timeframe, the USD is heavily overbought, but still has some way to go on both the weekly chart and the monthly charts before reaching these regions, so a little way to go, before we see a major reversal in trend. You can find more details on the indicator at http://www.quantumtrading.com, which is now available for both MT4 and NinjaTrader.
If you would like to catch up with my latest weekly forecast for FXstreet, just click the link below. FXStreet forecast Anna Coulling
By Anna Coulling
Leave a Reply