USD/CHF steadily climbs to weekly tops, further beyond mid-0.9700s
- The USD builds on the overnight bounce and helped gain some follow-through traction.
- Improving risk sentiment undermines CHF’s safe-haven demand and remained supportive.
- Traders refrain from placing aggressive bets ahead of Trump-Xi meeting later this week.
The USD/CHF pair held on to its mildly positive tone through the early North-American session and refreshed weekly tops in the last hour, albeit lacked any strong follow-through.
A combination of supporting factors helped the pair to continue gaining some traction for the second consecutive session on Wednesday and build on the previous session's goodish rebound from sub-0.9700 level, or yearly lows.
The US Dollar remained supported by the overnight not so dovish comments by influential FOMC member and seemed largely unaffected by Wednesday's disappointing release of US durable goods orders data for May.
On the other hand, improving global risk sentiment - as depicted by bullish trading sentiment around equity markets undermined the Swiss Franc's relative safe-haven demand and remained supportive of the positive momentum.
The US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin's remarks on Wednesday, as quoted by CNBC - though were rectified immediately, provided a strong intraday boost to investors’ appetite for riskier assets and dampened demand for traditional safe-haven assets.
The uptick, however, lacked any strong bullish conviction as investors preferred to remain on the sidelines and wait for fresh trade-related updates from the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting at G20 summit later this week.
Hence, it would be prudent to wait for a strong follow-through buying before confirming that the pair might have actually bottomed out in the near-term and positioning for further appreciating move beyond the 0.9800 handle.
Technical levels to watch