Investing.com - The dollar started the week off in a continuation of recent upward momentum coming off three straight weeks of gains..
At 4:52AM ET (8:52GMT) Monday, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, rose 0.18% to 92.59, close to its 2018 peak of 92.75.
In a session with no major economic reports, investors will watch appearances from members of the Federal Reserve to gauge the future path of monetary policy.
Fed officials Raphael Bostic, Tom Barkin, Charles Evans and Robert Kaplan will all deliver speeches throughout the day on Monday.
The most recent jobs report released last Friday showed fewer jobs were created in April than expected, but the unemployment rate fell to 3.9%, its lowest level since December 2000.
Wage inflation remained subdued with a 2.6% rise year-on-year, missing expectations for a gain of 2.7%.
The increase in wages is being closely monitored by the Federal Reserve for evidence of diminishing slack in the labor market and upward pressure on inflation. Economists generally consider an increase of 3.0% or more to be consistent with rising inflation.
The data did little to alter market expectations for the Fed’s monetary policy path with the next hike still priced for June, with a follow-up in September. Odds for a fourth increase in 2018 at the end of the year remained at around 42% at the time of writing.
In currency pairs, GBP/USD inched up 0.05% to 1.3538 with UK traders celebrating a holiday on Monday.
Meanwhile, the euro continued to be under pressure, as investors continued to weigh signs that the euro zone economy was losing momentum. Among reports released on Monday, German factory orders registered a surprise decline of 0.9%.
The euro zone purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the retail sector slipped into contraction, with the sharpest decline in annual sales in the last 13 months.
The Sentix investor confidence for the euro area also unexpectedly dropped to 19.2 in May, missing expectations for an advance to 21.2.
EUR/USD was last down 0.23% at 1.1933.
The dollar also traded 0.32% higher against the Swiss franc as Switzerland saw inflation data ease in April.
Over in Asia, the USD/JPY pair gained 0.14% to 109.26, following Japan’s Golden Week holiday period. The Bank of Japan’s monetary policy meeting minutes were released on Monday morning. The central bank kept its loose monetary policy steady and its governor signaled his readiness to ramp up stimulus if the economy lost steam.