Market movements remained volatile heading into the end of the week with investors watching the US dollar change direction again.
Driven by the economic data of the United States (US) published in the New York session yesterday, the US dollar showed significant strengthening again.
A bit of a surprise when the US monthly producer inflation (PPI) reading was higher than forecast at 0.6% for February compared to 0.3%, marking the biggest increase since August last year.
This PPI reading is seen to accompany the pattern of consumer inflation (CPI) which also increased published last Tuesday.
US jobless claims for the previous week also posted good numbers, while retail sales fell short of forecasts, but were better than the previous numbers.
The positive overall reading shows that the US economy is still resilient and this again triggers expectations that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will not be in a hurry to lower interest rates in the near term.
This situation has had an impact on the strengthening of the US dollar following the expectation that the Fed will continue to maintain a tight policy for several more meetings.
Of course, other major currencies in the market will again be affected by the strengthening pressure of the US dollar.
The strengthening signal of the US dollar at the beginning of the week seems to continue towards the end of the week.
However, some other data will be in focus in the final session, among them the Empire State manufacturing index and the US consumer confidence survey by the University of Michigan.
The dollar index (DXY) has shown a jump to 103.40 points while the US 10-year treasury yield is back up to around 4.30%.
The commodity market was also buoyant as crude oil prices for both benchmarks WTI and Brent soared to their highest levels since November 2023.
WTI reached a price level of $81.00 per barrel while Brent reached $85.20.
However, gold trades were gloomy with a bearish pattern showing up to reach around $2,153.
