Asian session review: the US dollar rose against most currencies

During today's Asian trading, the US dollar rose against the euro and the yen thanks to strong statistics on the US economy published the day before.

Data on the US labor market showed a more significant than expected decline in the number of applications for unemployment benefits in the country. The number of new applications last week decreased by 39 thousand, to 406 thousand, the lowest since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Commerce's estimate of first-quarter GDP growth was left at 6.4% on an annualized basis.

On Friday, the US Department of Commerce will release April data on spending and income of the US population. As part of this report, the dynamics of the PCE Core Index, a key inflation indicator tracked by the Federal Reserve System, is traditionally published. The consensus forecast of experts provides for the growth of the PCE Core index in April by 2.9%, the highest since 1993.

Traders are closely watching the inflation figures, believing that the acceleration in consumer price growth, together with the improvement in the labor market and the economy as a whole, may force the Federal Reserve System (Fed) to start scaling back stimulus earlier than markets expected.

The ICE index, which tracks the dollar's performance against six currencies (euro, swiss franc, yen, canadian dollar, pound sterling and swedish krona), rose 0.19%.