USD/CHF trades deep in the red below 0.9200 mark, near two-week lows

The USD/CHF pair maintained its heavily offered tone through the first half of the European session and dropped to one-and-half-week lows, around the 0.9170 region in the last hour.

The pair continued with its struggle to find acceptance, or build on the momentum beyond mid-0.9200s and came under some aggressive selling pressure on Thursday. The steep decline marked the first day of a negative move in the previous four and was sponsored by a combination of factors.

Worries about the economic fallout from the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 took its toll on the global risk sentiment. This was evident from a sea of red across the equity markets, which provided a strong boost to safe-haven currencies, including the Swiss franc.

The risk-off flow was reinforced by an extension of the steep decline in the US Treasury bond yields. In fact, the yield on the benchmark 10-year US government bond dropped below the 1.30% threshold, or multi-month lows, which prompted some long-unwinding trade around the US dollar.

That said, indications that the Fed is moving towards tightening its policy as soon as this year should help limit any deeper losses for the buck. Wednesday's FOMC June meeting minutes revealed that Fed officials agreed on the need to be ready to act if inflation risk materialize.

This warrants some caution for bearish traders and positioning for any further depreciating move. Market participants now look forward to the release of the US Initial Weekly Jobless Claims. This, along with the market risk sentiment, might provide some impetus to the USD/CHF pair.

Technical levels to watch