[MARKET ANALYSIS] USD flat into CPI, low yielding funders modestly weaker as JPY shorts are relocated
- G10s are mostly flat against the Buck, low-yielders CHF and SEK underperfom despite a lack of specific catalysts.
- USD slightly firmer against most peers and looking to fill the gap made after NFP losses. More weight on the CPI print today after those FT sources suggested Warsh was more attentive to the inflation side of the mandate, in the weeks ahead at least. Despite the recent USD action, the market is primed for a soft 0.2% M/M core print; a figure which could see some reduction of tightening bets. As it stands, the market sees September as a coin-flip between hold and hike. On politics, ING reckons Trump's potential capital gains cut into the Midterms, as reported by Bloomberg, would be a "mild dollar negative from a pro-risk perspective". In terms of levels into CPI, to the DXY's NFP low was 99.40 to the downside, 99.18 is the 200DMA. To the upside is 100.00, thereafter the 21/50DMAs are around 100.50, which could come into play on a hot print.
- No EUR move to unrevised Italian and German CPI; EUR likely to trade at the whim of the Buck on US CPI; the single currency currently flat at 1.1530 with catalysts absent, also flat against CEE, where focus remains on the implications of the European heatwave for energy supply.
- The same story for GBP, which is flat, but more resilient than others to the modest USD strength. For the moment eyes are on UK data with GDP scheduled tomorrow following yesterday's BRC report, which showed sales growth below expectations. Cable is within a narrow 10 pip range.
- SEK and CHF are among the worst performers vs the USD. Despite headline specific newsflow being light, action is potentially a function of carry funding amid the recent unwinding of JPY shorts.
Pre-CPI consolidations of this kind are a familiar pattern: positioning compresses into the print, ranges narrow, and the dollar's reaction function matters more than the level going in, since a market primed for a soft core reading is asymmetrically exposed to an upside surprise. The detail that carries weight here is the reported attentiveness of the Fed chair pick to the inflation side of the mandate; personnel-driven shifts in the perceived reaction function have historically repriced front-end rate expectations more durably than any single data point, and September being priced as a coin-flip between hold and hike means the print resolves a genuinely live two-way distribution rather than confirming a consensus. The relocation of JPY shorts into other low-yielding funders is the standard carry mechanism: when one funding leg is unwound, the funding pressure migrates to CHF and SEK, which is why they underperform without idiosyncratic catalysts; episodes of this kind tend to persist until the carry trade re-establishes or risk sentiment turns. The technical framing is doing the work it usually does into event risk, with the DXY bracketed between the post-NFP low and the round number above, and a hot print the scenario that reopens the moving-average cluster overhead. Worth observing is whether the CPI outcome resolves the funding-currency weakness (a soft print typically revives carry demand) or compounds it, and whether follow-through commentary on the incoming chair's mandate priorities extends or fades the initial repricing.