Forex Today: Slow start to critical week for currencies

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

Here is what you need to know on Monday, March 4:

Major currency pairs fluctuate near the previous week's closing levels early Monday as investors gear up for key macroeconomic events and data releases. Sentix Investor Confidence will be featured in the European economic docket on Monday. Later in the week, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell will deliver his semi-annual testimony and European Central Bank (ECB) will announce monetary policy decisions.

As risk flows dominated the financial markets ahead of the weekend, the US Dollar (USD) came under selling pressure, with the USD Index posting losses for the week. Early Monday, the USD Index moves sideways slightly below 104.00 and US stock index futures trade mixed. Meanwhile, the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond yield holds steady at around 4.2% after falling more than 1.5% on Friday.

US Dollar price today

The table below shows the percentage change of US Dollar (USD) against listed major currencies today. US Dollar was the strongest against the Japanese Yen.

	USD	EUR	GBP	CAD	AUD	JPY	NZD	CHF
USD		-0.05%	-0.04%	0.08%	0.06%	0.17%	0.04%	-0.02%
EUR	0.04%		0.00%	0.13%	0.12%	0.21%	0.08%	0.02%
GBP	0.04%	0.00%		0.11%	0.10%	0.22%	0.07%	0.02%
CAD	-0.08%	-0.11%	-0.13%		-0.01%	0.09%	-0.04%	-0.10%
AUD	-0.06%	-0.11%	-0.10%	0.03%		0.11%	-0.02%	-0.08%
JPY	-0.17%	-0.22%	-0.25%	-0.11%	-0.12%		-0.15%	-0.20%
NZD	-0.04%	-0.09%	-0.07%	0.04%	0.02%	0.13%		-0.06%
CHF	0.03%	-0.02%	-0.02%	0.11%	0.08%	0.19%	0.06%

The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the Euro from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the Japanese Yen, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent EUR (base)/JPY (quote).

During the Asian trading hours, the data from Australia showed TD Securities Inflation declined to 4% on a yearly basis in February from 4.6% in January and Building Permits increased by 10% in January (YoY) following December's 24% contraction. AUD/USD largely ignored these data and was last seen trading flat slightly above 0.6500.

Australian Dollar stays quiet amid a stable US Dollar, awaits US data, Fed Powell's speech.

USD/JPY closed the week above 150.00 and went into a consolidation phase to start the new week. Tokyo Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for February will be featured in the Japanese economic docket in the Asian session on Tuesday.

Japanese Yen edges lower against USD amid BoJ uncertainty; focus shifts to Tokyo CPI on Tuesday.

Gold gathered bullish momentum and climbed to a fresh 2024-high above $2,080 on Friday, boosted by retreating US T-bond yields. XAU/USD trades in a tight channel at around $2,080 early Monday.

Gold price remains confined in a range near two-month top, bulls not ready to give up yet.

EUR/USD staged a rebound on Friday and closed the week with small gains. The pair stays calm at around 1.0850 in the European morning on Monday.

GBP/USD stabilized above 1.2650 on Monday after ending the previous week virtually unchanged.

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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