US Dollar Index: Hawkish Fed minutes may support greenback – ING

ING’s Francesco Pesole notes that recent equity jitters and firm Oil prices have underlined the Dollar’s safe-haven appeal, while markets look to the June Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) minutes. He argues the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) hawkish shift and Dot Plot have kept the Dollar supported, and expects US Dollar Index (DXY) to trade largely rangebound with modest upside risks in the near term.

Fed minutes seen cementing hawkish stance

"Equity jitters offered the dollar some support yesterday – a reminder of the greenback’s very strong safe-haven appeal despite the concentration of AI-sensitive stocks in US indices. Oil prices are also trading on the strong side after some overnight military action in Iran and the Treasury revoking the waiver that allowed Teheran to sell crude. Markets will keep monitoring the situation but have tended to fade Middle East re-escalation risk, so there’s a good chance it will be mostly macro news driving FX today, as the June FOMC minutes are released."

"The importance of the Fed's hawkish shift in June for the dollar cannot be overstated. Markets’ conviction around tightening is what prevented the dollar from following oil prices lower, and that conviction relies heavily on the median Dot Plot signalling a hike and Kevin Warsh reaffirming a strong commitment to the inflation mandate."

"Today’s minutes will clarify how serious members are about the possibility of rate hikes. Based on post-meeting communication, we see limited risk of a dovish surprise in the minutes. We expect a cementing of the hawkish message to firm up dollar momentum, although we don’t expect it to lead to a break higher as markets may be reluctant to reprice rate expectations aggressively higher (now 35bp by December) after the soft jobs report."

"We expect mostly rangebound DXY in the very near term, with some upside risks to 101.50-102.0 unless large JPY interventions cause a mechanical correction."