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Dollar Index refreshes four-month highs

  • Dollar Index prints a high of 99.14 to hit the highest level since mid-October. 
  • The greenback continues to attract safe-haven flows amid coronavirus scare and growth concerns. 

The dollar index, which tracks the value of the greenback against most majors, has risen to a fresh four-month high of 99.14, surpassing the previous high of 99.11 reached on Thursday. 

The greenback continues to attract haven flows amid the signs of a slowdown in the Eurozone and increased fears of global growth slowdown due to coronavirus outbreak. 

More importantly, the US economy looks to be on a stable footing, as highlighted by last week's Nonfarm Payrolls report. The data showed the economy added 225K jobs in January, beating the Wall Street estimates for a 158K gain by a big margin. Further, average hourly earnings rose 3.1% over a year ago, beating the estimate for 3% growth. 

Focus on Eurozone and US data

The German data due at 07:00 GMT is expected to show the economy expanded by 0.1% quarter-on-quarter in the final three months of 2019. Meanwhile, the Eurozone GDP for the fourth quarter is expected to come in at an unchanged quarter-on-quarter reading of 0.1%. 

A weaker-than-expected German GDP would bolster recession fears, boosting haven flows into the US dollar. 

The dollar may also find love if the US January retail sales, due at 13:30, better the estimated growth of 3%. Post-retail sales, the focus would shift to the Industrial Production data. 

Technical levels

 

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