US Dollar Index remains strong amid positive retail sales data

Daily Currency Update

The US Dollar Index (DXY) continued to trade strong this morning after hitting a 5-month high on Friday. The DXY was up 0.15% this morning to trade near 105.12. Retail sales data helped boost the USD with Core Retail Sales month-over-month, which excludes automotive sales, coming in better than the expected 0.5% and previous 0.5% at 1.1%. Monthly retail sales came in at 0.7%, better than the expected 0.4% but worse than the previous 0.9%. In other data news, the Empire State Manufacturing Index, a monthly survey of manufacturers in New York to rate the relative level of business, came in much worse than expected at -14.3. The anticipated level was -5.2 and the previous was -20.9. Business inventories came in higher-than-expected month-over-month at 0.4%with the forecast and previous being 0.3% and 0% respectively. Finally, the National Associate of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI), which is a monthly survey to read the pulse of the single-family housing market, remained unchanged at 51.