While the market is in a cautious mood ahead of this week's FOMC meeting, the US dollar yesterday was seen to still manage to maintain its positive performance from the beginning of the week.
The US dollar showed further strengthening at the beginning of the trading session in New York when reacting to the published economic data of the United States (US).
The consumer confidence survey showed an increase in the latest reading for July, after the previous updated reading fell below the 100-point mark.
Also published together is the JOLTS employment data which is one of the important components to measure the health of the US labor sector.
The number of job openings in the United States in June was 8.18 million, beating forecasts. The previous month's figure was also updated to 8.23 million from 8.14 million.
Good data readings supported the strengthening of the US dollar at the beginning of the session, but the momentum started to disappear as we headed towards the end of the session.
The market still maintains high expectations for the Federal Reserve's (Fed) interest rate cut measures to be implemented in September.
Therefore, the main focus of the market this week will be on the FOMC meeting early Thursday morning.
Interest rates are still expected to be kept on hold for this meeting, but analysts are starting to place expectations that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will give a clearer indication of the policy easing measures.
The focus today (Wednesday) will first be on the results of the central bank of Japan (BOJ) meeting with predictions that interest rate hikes will occur.
In the New York session, the ADP employment data which measures the private sector will be watched as an early indicator ahead of the NFP data report at the end of the week.
The market's side focus will also be European inflation data, Canadian economic growth data and US housing data.
