Markets on Wednesday: USD Struggles To Pop

Wall Street had some more positive headlines overnight, led by a surge in Intel and a rise in the minimum wage for Amazon workers. However, the USD couldn’t quite pop on the news and settled back below resistance.

The news that Amazon will lift the minimum wage to $15 ph, comes at a good time with employment data due for release this week in the US. While it won’t have any impact on the immediate short-term results. It is a positive sign with wage growth increasing which is an important figure.

We also heard from the Fed boss Jerome Powell, who was particularly positive on the state of the economy. He suggested we were in a special time in the market cycle and that gives me the impression that his hawkish stance on rates won’t be changing any time soon.

Today we get ADP employment data which will be a bit of a preview of Friday’s official numbers. In what is looking like another busy week.

The USD Outlook

The DXY couldn’t quite make it through the resistance level at 95.50 and price managed to settle back towards that level.

Given the fact that we’ve been held down by this price for a number of weeks, I suspect it will take multiple attempts and perhaps a big fundamental data point.

Above that, I feel 96.20 is the next clear resistance level, ahead of the highs of recent times which is at 97.00.