Tough times for the US Dollar

The US dollar had an awful July, with the USD index dropping by around 5% over the month, its worst monthly performance in 10 years. A range of factors can be cited for USD weakness including an asset allocation shift to assets outside of the US, worsening news on US Covid cases over recent weeks, improved risk appetite, US election concerns, lower real yields and fiscal cliff worries, among other factors.  Gold has been a particularly strong beneficiary of the malaise in the USD and declining real yield yields.  The Fed's pledge to keep on aggressively supporting the economy and likely strengthening of forward guidance in the months ahead suggest that any increase in US interest rates could be years off.

It is still difficult to see the recent weakness in the USD resulting in a deterioration in its dominant reserve currency status though the longer the factors noted above remain in place, the bigger the danger to longer term confidence in the USD. As a reminder of such risks Fitch ratings downgraded US AAA credit rating to a negative outlook.  I do not expect markets and the USD to be impacted by the move, but it does highlight a worsening in US fundamentals.  While other currencies are still a long away from displacing the USD dominance in FX reserves, financial flows, FX trading and trade, the longer term risks to the USD are clear.

That said, the USD caught a bid at the end of last week resulting in a sharp retreat in the euro (EUR) from heavily overbought technical levels.  It is unlikely to be a coincide that this occurred as US Covid cases showed signs of peaking while cases in many parts of Europe began to accelerate, resulting in delays to opening up or renewed tightening of social distancing measures there.  US stocks have also continued to perform well, despite much discussion of a rotation to value stocks.  Solid earnings from US tech heavyweights solidified their position as leaders of the pack.  It is too early to say that this is the beginning of a USD turnaround, but the currency is heavily oversold in terms of positioning and technicals, which point to room for some respite.

Turning to the week ahead attention will be on July global Purchasing Managers Indices (PMI) data beginning with China's private sector Caixin PMI (consensus 51.1), and the US ISM survey (consensus 53.6) tomorrow.  Central bank decisions include the Reserve Bank of Australia (Tue), Bank of England (Thu), Reserve Bank of India (Thu) and Bank of Thailand (Wed).  No change is likely from the RBA, BoE and BoT, but expect a 25bp cut from RBI.  At the end of the week two pieces of data will take precedence; US July jobs data and China July trade data.  US-China tensions will come under further scrutiny after President Trump vowed to ban TikTok in the US while pouring cold water on a sale to a third party.