Treasury - Daily Forex for day 06.01.2005

The U.S. dollar was barely changed against the euro on Wednesday, but the market sentiment towards the U.S. currency seems to be rather bullish for the moment. The dollar got a boost late on Tuesday after the minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest meeting suggested that the central bank might accelerate the pace of interest rate tightening. As a result, the dollar recorded its biggest one-day rise against the euro and yen since mid-2004 on Tuesday. Yesterday the market took little notice of the U.S. Institute for Supply Management's service sector index, which jumped to higher-than-expected 63.1 in December from 61.3 in November. This afternoon, the U.S. Labour Ministry releases a weekly report on jobless claims. The market expects 331,000 claims in the latest week, up from 326,000 in the previous week.

The Czech crown firmed against the euro yesterday after the Czech Statistical Office reported that the foreign trade balance showed a surprising surplus of 5.2 billion crowns in November, its biggest monthly surplus in a decade. The market had forecast a deficit of 6.0 billion crowns.