Major currencies aren’t doing a whole lot as traders are keeping their focus on the US retail sales data later today. After yesterday’s wild ride, there is a particular importance to today’s report considering that it will provide some outline on a potential 75 bps or 100 bps rate hike by the Fed in less than two weeks‘ time.

The dollar was mostly steady earlier but is seen slightly softer in the last hour or so. That said, the moves aren’t anything too significant.

EUR/USD was lingering around 1.0020-30 before moving up to 1.0050 currently. Of note, price is holding above its 100-hour moving average at 1.0039 but it’s all about what the data release has to offer later today.

Meanwhile, USD/JPY remains down 0.1% to 138.75 and is little changed overall. USD/CHF is down 0.5% to just under 0.9800 though as the franc is the top performer on the day so far.

Elsewhere, USD/CAD is down 0.3% to 1.3075 and that is seeing price start to push back towards the broken resistance region around 1.3076-83 this week:

That will be a crucial level to watch before the close this week.

Looking at other markets, equities are holding slightly higher with European indices playing catch up to the late rebound in Wall Street yesterday. The mood is helped by slight gains in US futures with S&P 500 futures up 13 points, or 0.3%, currently.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.