USD Gains vs. EUR & CHF, Falls vs. JPY

The US dollar managed to gain against the euro and the Swiss franc today, but fell against the Japanese yen as mixed fundamentals left traders unsure about prospects for the US currency.

The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller House Price Index fell 4.5 percent in June on year-over-year basis. That’s better result than the predicted 4.7 percent decline and the drop by 4.6 percent in May. On the other hand, Conference Board consumer sentiment was much worse than forecasts, falling from 59.2 in July to 44.5 in August, while analysts hope that the index will retreat just to 52.1.

Tomorrow’s reports don’t look good for the dollar either. The ADP Employment report is expected to show slower growth of employed Americans by 102,000, compared to the July growth by 114,000. Economists say that Chicago PMI will show a drop to 54.3 in August from 58.8 in July.

EUR/USD went down from 1.4510 to 1.4444 as of 21:05 GMT today, while intraday it touched the low of 1.4382. USD/JPY dropped from 76.84 to 76.73, while USD/CHF advanced from 0.8156 to 0.8201.