The dollar channeled its inner Tim Tebow and powered through the charts in yesterday’s trading. It gained against all of its major counterparts, bagging 182 pips from the euro, 60 pips from the pound, 126 pips from the aussie, and 22 pips from the Japanese yen.
Despite the lack of economic reports, it looks like the dollar didn’t run out of piptorade yesterday. At the aftermath of the EU Summit, renowned credit rating agency Moody’s, announced that it was unsatisfied with the outcome of the meeting. In fact, hotshots at the agency were so disappointed, they warned that some EU countries could be downgraded within the following month. Yikes!
With that said, make sure you keep an ear out for what credit rating agencies have to say. Remember that S&P has also put 15 EU countries on credit downgrade watch and some market junkies are expecting to see them act on their statement sometime this week.
Also, make sure you don’t miss the U.S. retail sales report for November which is due at 1:30 pm GMT. Consumer spending for the month is seen to have increased from 0.5% to 0.6%. Meanwhile, excluding volatile items, the core retail sales is eyed at 0.5%.
Another potential market-mover in today’s trading is the FOMC statement later at 7:15 pm GMT. No one is expecting the Fed to hike interest rates, however, it’s still worthwhile to hear what Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has to say. Watch out for clues about the central bank’s future monetary policy. If the head honcho hints that the possibility of QE3 has diminished with the string of positive reports we’ve recently seen from the country, the dollar could rally even more!