Dollar stays firm against Euro, Swiss Franc and, to a lesser extent Yen, in Asian session today. Trading in the currency markets have been relatively quiet so far this week. A major focus today is the minutes of the October FOMC meeting. Attention will be on whether policy makers express easing concern over emerging markets, in particular China, earlier this year. Another key is whether there are more FOMC members expressing the confidence for rate hike in December. But after all, we're not expecting much new information and the greenback would likely stay firm after today's release. At the moment, fed fund futures are pricing in 64% chance of a rate hike in December, slightly down from prior day's 67.8%.
Swiss franc is one of the weakest major currencies this week. There were some talks that in response to ECB's expected additional easing in December, SNB is ready to act to counter the impact. That might include further reduction in interest rates and currency market intervention. We covered that in an earlier report SNB Pledges To Keep CHF Weak, Deeper Negative Rates And FX Intervention Expected. Technically, it should be noted that EUR/CHF is struggling in range below 1.1049 high made back in September. Outlook is still bullish with 1.0732 cluster support intact. But decisive break of this level could trigger sharp reversal in the cross.
On the data front, Australia conference board leading indicator dropped -1% in September. Westpac leading indicator rose 0.1% mom in October. Wage cost index rose 0.6% qoq in Q3. Swiss ZEW expectations index is the main feature in European and might not trigger much reactions. US will release new residential constructions today. Housing starts are expected to fall to 1.16m annualized rate in October. Building permits are expected to rise to 1.15m annualized rate. As noted above, Fed will also release FOMC meeting minutes.