Assessing the Disinflationary Impact on FX Markets: Outlook for the Dollar and Potential Reversal Signals

FX Daily: How much more fuel in the disinflation tank?

Last week’s US disinflation shock altered the FX landscape, but a few days without key data releases will tell us whether that impulse can keep the dollar on the back foot as the FOMC risk event draws nearer. EUR/USD appears a bit overstretched in the short term and could face a correction this week.

 

USD: Some caveats to the bearish narrative

On Friday, we published FX Talking: The dollar’s break point, where we discuss our updated views on G10 and EM currencies and present our latest forecasts. The radical shift in the FX positioning picture since the US CPI and PPI releases last week now forces a reassessment of the dollar outlook. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data on speculative positioning offers little help in understanding how much dollar positioning has changed since the latest reported positions were as of Tuesday, before the inflation report. Back then, the weighted aggregate positioning against reported G9 currencies (i.e., G10 excluding SEK and NOK) had already inched into net-short territory (-2% of open interest, in our calculations).

When making the parallel with the November-December 2022 dollar decline, positioning shows a key difference. At the end of October 2022, markets were still speculatively long on the dollar (around 10% of open interest against CFTC-reported G9). Another important factor – especially for EUR/USD – is the degree to which other central banks outside of the US can still surprise on the hawkish side, which is significantly lower than it was last autumn.

These caveats to the rather compelling bearish dollar story mean that it may not be one-way traffic from here in FX, even if we see the dollar weaken further into year-end. On the fundamental side, the disinflation story puts risk assets on a sweet spot, favours a re-steepening of the US yield curve and should make pro-cyclical currencies more attractive. However, the Federal Reserve may not turn into a USD-negative that swiftly. Our US economist still sees a 25bp hike next week as likely. It is fully priced in, but will the Fed be ready to throw the towel on more hikes just yet? Core inflation is declining, but the jobs market remains very tight and other economic indicators remain resilient. The dot plot is still showing another hike before a peak and Fed Chair Jerome Powell may prefer to err on the hawkish side, especially through a rate cut pushback (first cut priced in for the first quarter of 2024).

This week will be interesting to watch since the lack of tier-one data in the US will offer a clue on how FX markets will trade from now on; the question is whether investors now see enough reasons to add short positions on the dollar ahead of the FOMC or take a more cautious approach. The latter – which appears marginally more likely in our eyes – may see the dollar reclaim some portions of recent losses. DXY could find some support after climbing back above 100.00.