USD/CHF clings to gains near mid-0.9600s

After Friday's sharp pull-back from near three-week tops, the USD/CHF pair regained traction and traded with positive bias at the start of a new trading week.

The US Dollar recovered some of its Friday's steep losses, led by disappointing CPI and retail sales reports, to 10-month lows and has been one of the key drivers of the pair's up-move through early European session on Monday.

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Meanwhile, a stable opening in European equity indices further dented demand for traditional safe-haven currencies, including the Swiss Franc, and collaborated to the pair's up-move to session tops beyond mid-0.9600s.

Looking at the broader picture, the pair has been confined within 100-pips broader trading band between the 0.9600-9700 handles. Hence, traders are like to wait for a decisive break through the mentioned range before committing to the pair's next leg of directional move.

Today's US economic docket features the release of Empire State Manufacturing Index and would be looked upon for some trading impetus later during the NA session.

Technical levels to watch

Momentum above 0.9670 level might continue to confront some fresh supply near the 0.9700 handle, above which a bout of short-covering has the potential to continue lifting the pair further towards its next major hurdle near 0.9755 horizontal level.

On the flip side, weakness below 0.9630 level could get extended towards the 0.9600 handle, which if broken decisively could expose multi-month lows support near 0.9555-50 region.