The dollar resumed its advance against majors despite the drop in US existing home sales in October by 2.2% to a 4.43 million annual rate from 4.53 million in September as tensions between Koreas and European debt woes spurred demand on refuges.
The dollar, yen and Swiss franc were the largest gainers today as South Korea and North Korea exchanged fire while fears in Europe increased ahead of Irish elections this week and on expected spread of rescue contagion to the region's highly indebted economies.
The Irish Parliamentary elections on November 25 raised concerns as the Green Party said it will come out of the ruling coalition after the budget vote, claiming that Cowen deceived voters in negotiating the salvage plan.
Also, European Union and International Monetary Fund officials said at today Greece has to exert more effort to lower its 2011 budget deficit to the pledged 7.5% of GDP to receive the rest of installments of the 110 billion–euro rescue package launched in May by the EU and IMF.
The Irish bailout raised the possibility that countries such as Portugal and Spain will ask for a similar package to trim their huge deficit which caused Credit Default Swaps related to Portuguese debt to rise the highest level since the end of September while CDS in Spain, Italy and Italy followed the Portuguese suit.
All these European concerns pushed the euro to the downside where the German third quarter final GDP reading which remained at 0.7% and the continuation of manufacturing and services sectors' expansion in November could not give an uplift to the European common currency.
The dollar index, which tracks the dollar movements versus a basket of major currencies, advanced for the second day to reach a high of 79.48 while the day's opening was at 78.62.
Concerning the euro-dollar pair, it dropped for the second day after it managed to breach support at 1.3500 levels which pushed the pair down to 1.3413,
The pair touched the highest point at 1.3632 and the lowest at 1.3396, where the trading range for today is among the key support at 1.3535 and the key resistance at 1.3760.
Moving to the royal pair, it slipped for the second day, yet it got some support at 1.5875 which is the pair currently hovering around, where the breach of this level and a daily closing below it may take the pair further to the downside.
The pair recorded its highest level at 1.5964 and lowest at 1.5848, while the trading range for today is among the key support at 1.5775 and the key resistance at 1.6185.
With regard to the dollar-yen pair, it retreated to stop its reversal correction from 15-year low which started since the beginning of November, yet it is currently doing attempts to remain below support at 82.85 where the pair is moving around.
The pair has reached a high of 83.83 a low of 82.71, while the trading range for today is among the key support at 82.85 and the key resistance at 85.00.