Risk sentiment is steadier so far in European trading and that is seeing the dollar keep slightly lower on the session. The retreat in the greenback isn't anything too notable, ranging around 0.2% to 0.3% against the major currencies bloc. Even though we did get major economic data releases this week, it doesn't seem to have been enough to trigger much appetite in dollar pairs.
I'll let the charts do the talking once again but TLDR: Nothing much has changed since this post on Tuesday here.
EUR/USD is still largely caught in a bind after the failure to get above 1.1000 on the January rally. The rejection there now puts key resistance at the figure level while key support lies closer towards the January lows closer towards 1.0500. For now, price action is sort of consolidating right in the middle of that range below 1.0800 and that suggests a lack of directional momentum in play.
As for GBP/USD, the pair saw gains last month stall at the December highs around 1.2443-46 and then made its way back towards 1.2000 again. We did see a retest of the figure level yesterday and so far, buyers are still holding on. That said, bids on that side are acting as a decent support before we get to the key one in the form of the 100 (red line) and 200-day (blue line) moving averages at 1.1892 and 1.1939 respectively.
Adding to that support layer will be the the January lows in the region around 1.1841 to 1.1900 on the daily chart.
Much like EUR/USD, price needs a break on either side of the resistance and support levels noted to really indicate the next momentum move in pair.
Moving over to the antipodeans, first we have AUD/USD which has seen its strong start to the year thwarted by the August highs at 0.7125-36. Since then, we are seeing a bit of a retreat back under 0.7000 with buyers failing to get back above the figure level in recent attempts.
That is keeping sellers interested but they themselves have struggled to firmly break below the 19 January low at 0.6870 - at least on the daily chart. That remains a key short-term support level to watch before the 200-day moving average (blue line) comes into play closer to 0.6800 currently.
Then, we have NZD/USD which has seen its upside momentum stall again at around the 0.6500 mark - as it did back in December. The recent climb down has seen price action be caught in a bit of a consolidation territory since the end of last year. Key support lies closer to the December and January lows around the region of 0.6200 to 0.6230.
But just below that will be the 200-day moving average (blue line) at 0.6185, so any real push to the downside will require some real gusto to break below said support levels before the momentum gets going.
As you can see, most dollar pairs are not really going anywhere at this point as price action is caught in between key support and resistance levels. In other words, there needs to be a stronger trigger for price to break out and for a new momentum play to come about for traders. And we are just not there yet.
The only decent mover on the week seems to be USD/JPY, partly driven by higher bond yields.
Buyers look to be breaking away from the sequence of lower highs, lower lows as price pushes above short-term support around 132.87 to around 134.00 yesterday. Still, key support lies closer to the late December and January highs around 134.50 to 134.77 but I would just pin that at 135.00 as one can expect offers lined up at the figure level.