Forex Today: Dollar bulls remain hesitant, US Retail Sales and confidence data awaited

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

Here is what you need to know on Friday, October 15:

Risk flows and falling US Treasury bond yields forced the greenback to stay on the back foot on Thursday. With the benchmark 10-year US T-bond yield holding above critical 1.5% handle, the dollar stays resilient in the early European session on Friday as investors await the September Retail Sales report and the University of Michigan's (UoM) preliminary October Consumer Sentiment Index data.

US Michigan Consumer Sentiment September Preview: Happy consumer, happy economy?

Macro data: The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday that the Producer Price Index (PPI) rose to 8.6% on a yearly basis in September from 8.3% in August. Meanwhile, the weekly Initial Jobless Claims dropped to the lowest level since March 2019 at 293,000.

Retail Sales in September in the US is forecast to decline by 0.2% while consumer confidence is expected to improve modestly in October's flash estimate. August Trade Balance will be featured in the European economic docket on Friday.

US September Retail Sales Preview: Analyzing major pairs' reaction to previous releases.

Wall Street: Boosted by upbeat third-quarter earnings figures and robust US data, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average indexes gained 1.7% and 1.5%, respectively.

Gold managed to build on Wednesday's impressive gains and advanced to a monthly high of $1,800 on Thursday but seems to have lost its bullish momentum. XAU/USD is currently moving sideways around $1,790.

EUR/USD closed unchanged around 1.1600 on Thursday and continues to move sideways above that level. Unless the pair retreats below 1.1575 by the end of the day, it will snap a five-week losing streak.

GBP/USD climbed to multi-week highs above 1.3700 on Thursday but seems to have gone into a consolidation phase below that level. Investors remain focused on Brexit headlines.

USD/JPY renewed multi-year highs above 114.00 as the safe-haven JPY struggled to find demand despite falling US Treasury bond yields.

Cryptocurrencies: Following a small correction on Thursday, Bitcoin regained its traction and was last seen testing $60,000 while gaining nearly 4% on the day. Ethereum is rising for the third straight trading day on Friday and closes in on $4,000.

Author

Eren Sengezer

FXStreet

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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