USD/CHF bulls eye 0.9700 on downbeat Swiss trade numbers, focus on SNB, Fed

USD/CHF retreats from intraday high but prints mild gains on a day.
Swiss trade balance, import/exports print softer numbers for August.
DXY snaps two-day downtrend amid hawkish Fed bets, ignores inflation expectations.
SNB is up for 0.50% rate hike but Fed’s 75 bps rate lift appears mostly priced in.

Anil Panchal FXStreet

USD/CHF remains mildly bid around 0.9655, after a sluggish week-start, as downbeat Swiss data joins the broad US dollar strength amid Tuesday’s Asian session. Also challenging the Swiss currency (CHF) pair buyers is the cautious mood ahead of the monetary policy decisions from the US Federal Reserve (Fed) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB).

That said, the Swiss Trade Balance eased to 3,424M in August versus 3,717M market forecasts and 3,522M previous readings. The details suggest that the Exports also dropped to 20,942M versus 22,242M while Imports slid to 17,519M versus 18,720M during the stated month.

Elsewhere, the US Dollar Index (DXY) prints the first daily gain of around 109.65-70 in three while tracking the Treasury yields. Also keeping the greenback on a firmer footing are the geopolitical fears surrounding China and Russia.

It should be noted that the downbeat US housing numbers and multi-day low of the US inflation expectations, as per the breakeven inflation rate of the St. Louis Federal Reserve (FRED), challenged the US dollar buyers earlier.

Against this backdrop, the S&P 500 Futures fade the previous day’s bounce off a two-month low around 3,920 whereas the US 10-year and 2-year Treasury yields remain sidelined at the highest levels since April 2011 and October 2007 in that order.

Moving on, Wednesday’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will be the first key catalyst for the USD/CHF pair amid the mostly priced-in 0.75 rate hike. With this, the US dollar’s further upside hinges on Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech and the economic forecasts. Following that, Thursday’s SNB’s 0.50% rate hike will unveil the first positive rate since late 2014, which in turn could help the CHF buyers to return.

Technical analysis

Monday’s Doji candlestick challenges USD/CHF buyers unless the quote provides a daily closing beyond the 100-DMA hurdle surrounding 0.9690.

Additional important levels

Overview
Today last price	0.9654
Today Daily Change	0.0007
Today Daily Change %	0.07%
Today daily open	0.9647

Trends
Daily SMA20	0.9691
Daily SMA50	0.9638
Daily SMA100	0.9689
Daily SMA200	0.9487

Levels
Previous Daily High	0.9695
Previous Daily Low	0.9626
Previous Weekly High	0.9661
Previous Weekly Low	0.948
Previous Monthly High	0.9808
Previous Monthly Low	0.9371
Daily Fibonacci 38.2%	0.9653
Daily Fibonacci 61.8%	0.9669
Daily Pivot Point S1	0.9617
Daily Pivot Point S2	0.9587
Daily Pivot Point S3	0.9548
Daily Pivot Point R1	0.9686
Daily Pivot Point R2	0.9725
Daily Pivot Point R3	0.9755

Author

Anil Panchal

FXStreet

Anil Panchal has nearly 15 years of experience in tracking financial markets. With a keen interest in macroeconomics, Anil aptly tracks global news/updates and stays well-informed about the global financial moves and their implications.

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