USD/CHF extends rally to fresh seven-week highs above 0.9160
- USD/CHF builds on Wednesday's gains, renews multi-week highs.
- US Dollar Index preserves its bullish momentum on Thursday.
- Swiss National Bank left its policy settings unchanged in June.
The USD/CHF pair gained more than 100 pips on Wednesday and continued to push higher on Thursday. After touching its best level since late April at 0.9167, the pair seems to have gone into a consolidation phase and was last seen gaining 0.73% on the day at 0.9151.
DXY is up more than 1% this week
The broad-based USD strength fueled USD/CHF's rally in the late American session on Wednesday. The FOMC's updated Summary of Projections revealed that the number of policymakers who see a lift-off in the fed funds rate from zero in 2023 rose to 13 from seven in March. Additionally, FOMC Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged that they are not dismissing the possibility of inflation staying high for longer than expected.
Boosted by the hawkish shift in the FOMC's rate outlook, the US Dollar Index (DXY) gained nearly 1% on Wednesday and stretched to a fresh two-month high of 91.84 on Thursday.
On the other hand, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced earlier in the day that it left its policy settings unchanged as expected. Furthermore, the SNB reiterated that the CHF remains highly valued and that it will maintain its expansionary monetary policy.
Meanwhile, the data from the US showed that the Initial Jobless Claims rose to 412,000 in the week ending June 12. This reading came in worse than the market expectation of 359,000 but failed to trigger a noticeable market reaction.
Technical levels to watch for