Asian session: The dollar was set for its biggest weekly advance

05:00 Japan Consumer Confidence December 42.5 43.4 41.3

The dollar was set for its biggest weekly advance against major peers in two months before Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker speaks today. Lacker, who doesn’t vote on monetary policy this year, said on Jan. 10 that he “would expect a similar reduction in pace to be discussed at the upcoming meeting.”

The greenback rose versus most of its 16 main counterparts as U.S. data on retail sales, New York manufacturing and initial jobless claims released this week all beat economists estimates, bolstering bets the Fed will continue to reduce monetary stimulus. Jobless claims decreased by 2,000 to 326,000 in the week ended Jan. 11, a Labor Department report showed yesterday in Washington. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for 328,000. The Federal Open Market Committee will reduce purchases by $10 billion at each meeting to end the program this year, according to the median forecasts of economists in a Bloomberg survey. It next meets Jan. 28-29.

The yen’s losses were limited versus the greenback after U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said Japan can’t rely on the exchange rate for economic advantage.

EUR / USD: during the Asian session, the pair traded in the range of $ 1.3605-20

GBP / USD: during the Asian session the pair fell to $ 1.6320

USD / JPY: on Asian session the pair traded in the range of Y104.20-40

There is only limited UK data as the December retail sales data are released. Analysts note that it is virtually impossible for National Statistics to seasonally adjust data at this time of year, in part due to changes in discounting patterns year-to-year, and the December numbers will need to be viewed alongside January's to give a fuller picture of spending over the Christmas and New Year period. The BRC/KPMG December retail sales monitor shows sales growth slipped to 1.8% in on the year in December, which was the lowest level since December last year, with the exception of April 2013 when sales were weak due to a trading day lost to Easter compared to April 2012. The data raise questions as to whether household consumption will be able to provide as much of a boost to Q4 GDP as it did in Q3 when it contributed 0.5 percentage points to overall quarterly growth of 0.8%. Analysts are looking for UK Dec total retail sales to fall 0.7% on month and rise 1.8% on year.