USD

The US dollar shed some ground to its peers, presumably on positioning ahead of the inflation releases later this week.

There were no major reports out of the US economy on Monday while today has CPI data on tap. Both the core and headline figure could post 0.2% gains.

EUR

The euro weakened to most of its peers due mostly to cautious remarks from ECB members. Coeure mentioned that inflation remains weak so the timing for a QE exit hasn’t been discussed yet while Smets shared the same views. Only French private payrolls and the Italian unemployment rate are up for release today. This suggests that euro pairs could be more sensitive to data from its counterparts.

GBP

The pound was able to take advantage of dollar and yen weakness even though there were no major reports from the UK. Today has the government’s annual budget release and this isn’t really expected to have a huge impact on sterling movement. 

CHF

The franc also gained ground to the dollar and yen, emerging as the preferred safe-haven in recent sessions. There were no reports out of the Swiss economy yesterday and none are due today, so sentiment could push franc pairs around.

JPY

The yen gained some ground on calls for Abe’s resignation as a political scandal and an alleged cover-up resurfaced. This could mean an end to the easy monetary policy as part of Abenomics, which led to some bullish moves for the currency. The tertiary industry activity index, however, posted a larger than expected 0.6% fall to force the currency to retreat. 

Commodity Currencies (AUD, NZD, CAD)

The Loonie was the weakest of the bunch as weaker crude oil prices were in play and the currency shrugged off NAFTA updates. Australia’s NAB business confidence index declined from 11 to 9 to reflect a dip in optimism. BOC Governor Poloz has a speech coming up, just ahead of New Zealand’s current account balance release.

By Kate Curtis from Trader’s Way