Forex today: US retail sales take the dollar and yields higher

Forex today saw a continuation of the resurgence of the dollar and rates were higher as well. US data was surprisingly strong in the retail sales which add to the argument for further rate hikes in 2018 from the Federal Reserve. Fed's Dudley's comments yesterday were underscored on this data and the bulls went to town on it. However, Wall street was mixed and less bullish than previous sessions.

The DXY opened at 93.518 and traded within a range of 93.435 - 94.139 vs the previous close of 93.41 within the 52WK range of 92.548 - 103.820 and with a YTD return of -8.20%. The US ten years traded in a range of 2.2237% - 2.2816% vs the previous close of 2.2185%, up + 2.21% at 2.2676% at the time of writing.  Sterling was lower on a strong sell-off on the CPI miss overnight and spent the day consolidating at the bottom of that range down at 1.2846 from 1.2970 awaiting tomorrow's data dump in jobs wages and retails sales. The euro was lower to 1.1687 on US yield differential while the yen took a beating as the risks surrounding N.Korea subside. Commodities were suffering heavily and the Aussie, Kiwi and CAD all took a hit. USD/CAD rallied to 1.2778, Aussie down to 0.7807 losing 70 pips and the Kiwi was down to 0.7229 from  0.7312, suffering also from the GDT price index disappointment.

Key events ahead in Asia today

There are no scheduled key events today in the Asian session

Key notes from US session

• US: Retail sales for July 2017 were $478.9 billion, an increase of 0.6% from June
• NZD/USD headed for a break below the 0.72 handle?
• US: Demand for new homes strengthens in August - Wells Fargo
• NY Fed: Business conditions index climbed fifteen points to 25.2, highest level in nearly 3 years