After a very active last week, global markets have time to calm down. Moods in the markets are good especially after US labor market data have given the perfect mix. A lack of a major data releases in today's calendar suggests that without political revelations traders will possibly count down the hours until tomorrow.
After Friday's data, we're smarter about two issues. First of all, the markets are not threatened with abandoning risky assets in a panic before tightening the Fed's policy. The February report from the US labor market brought the best scenario for the risk appetite: a strong increase in employment (313k vs. 205k expected) shows that the US economy is still growing. A slowdown in wage growth (to 2.6% y/y from 2.9% y/y) means that the Fed does not have a strong need to change the strategy of three interest rate hikes this year. The move at the meeting on March 20-21 is sealed, but the discussion is about whether Fed will be able to justify the fourth increase and how many of them will be next year? Admittedly, calmness may be broken by tomorrow's CPI reading from the US, but the second surprising spike in inflation (0.5% m/m in January) would probably be too much to reasonably bet on.
Secondly, the topic of "trade battles" begins to fade when Donald Trump himself softens his position. There is talk of a longer and longer list of countries excluded from new duties with already confirmed Australia. As they say in the USA, barking turned out to be more dangerous than a bite, although I would like notice, that other dogs can also bite. It seems certain that the US president is most interested in weakening imports from China and the EU, so now the global investors are waiting for their retaliation. This may be something that will again disturb the market peace.
Let's now take a look at the US Dollar Index technical picture at the H4 time frame. The market bounced from the level of 89.41 and now is trading back in the main channel, but still below the nearest technical resistance at the level of 90.37. Only a sustained breakout above this level would open the road towards the recent high at the level of 90.98. The momentum remains neutral but is still above its fifty level, so the bullish price action is still possible.
