By Cornelius Luca
New York, June 15 (BridgeNews) - The U.S. dollar extended its losses against most of the majors following Thursday's National Association of Manufacturers' renewed calls on Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to shift away from his strong dollar policy. The euro climbed to a 24-day high of 86.73 cents, while the dollar slipped to a one-week low of 120.85 yen.
Sterling/dollar traders didn't miss the opportunity to cover more of their short positions, vaulting the pair to a nine-day high of 1.4101. Dollar/Swiss franc mirrored once again euro/dollar's moves and slipped to a 24-day low of 1.7587. Meanwhile, dollar/Canada added to its Thursday's gains and marked a nine-day high of 1.5289, despite evidence of rising inflation. Canada's consumer price index rose 0.9% in May from April and 3.9% from a year earlier. The core rate rose 0.3% on the month and 2.3% from a year earlier. Traders will now watch for resistance at 1.5326 from the 20-day moving average. Friday's domestic economic agenda focuses on the May consumer price index, the May industrial production and capacity utilization, and on the University of Michigan consumer confidence survey for early June. In other news, Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank, has intervened on the currency market in order to strengthen the Swedish krona versus the euro and the dollar. The Riksbank said it intervened to prevent inflation exceeding its 2% target in a two-year perspective. The intraday outlook for the dollar remains slightly weak versus the Japanese yen and the major European currencies.
Current Previous Change Global Global
NY open NY close low high
USD/JPY 120.99 121.32 -0.33 120.85 121.70
EUR/USD 0.8660 0.8626 0.0034 0.8610 0.8673
EUR/JPY 104.75 104.63 0.12 104.50 104.93
GBP/USD 1.4083 1.4013 0.0070 1.3994 1.4101
USD/CHF 1.7609 1.7705 -0.0096 1.7587 1.7706
USD/CAD 1.5285 1.5208 0.0077 1.5189 1.5289
AUD/USD 0.5270 0.5275 -0.0005 0.5230 0.5280
NZD/USD 0.4180 0.4188 -0.0008 0.4157 0.4194
SP.1 1219.50 -3.50 1216.00 1229.00
ND.1 1689.50 -21.50 1676.00 1727