SINGAPORE- The dollar made a steady start on Monday as investors prepared for a week packed with economic data that may give a first glimpse of whether US President Donald Trump’s trade war is hitting home.
At 143.57 yen and $1.1360 per euro the greenback has, for now, found a footing, while staying on course for its largest monthly fall in nearly 2-1/2 years as Trump has rattled confidence in the dependability of US assets.
It is down more than 4 percent on both the euro and the yen through April, though bounced at the end of last week on an apparent conciliatory shift in the tone of US-China relations.
Last week both sides seemed to pull back from the precipice, with the Trump administration signalling openness to reducing tariffs and China exempting some imports from its 125 percent levies.
Yet where Trump insists there has been progress, and that he has spoken with President Xi Jinping, Beijing has denied trade talks are occurring and on Sunday Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent did not say that tariff talks were under way.
“The next big chapter here will be whether all this volatility has hit real-world decisions – especially in the US jobs market,” said ING’s global head of markets, Chris Turner.
That has investors waiting on April US jobs figures, due on Friday, where a sharp slowdown in hiring is expected.
The US also releases first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) data and the Federal Reserve’s favoured inflation gauge, core PCE, this week, while GDP and preliminary inflation figures are also due in Europe.
An Australian inflation reading on Wednesday is seen as unlikely to derail a rate cut that markets have priced as a certainty for next month.
