Investing.com - The U.S. dollar rebounded on Tuesday after falling in the previous session as soft U.S. retail sales data suggested consumers were reluctant to spend.
The U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies last traded at 94.88 by 1:02 AM ET (05:02 GMT), up 0.12%.
The dollar dipped in the previous session after the Commerce Department reported that core retail sales fell 0.1% last month. That confounded economists’ forecast for a 0.4% rise. The retail sales control group, which has a larger impact on U.S. GDP, rose 0.5% beating expectations for a 0.3% rise.
"These data mean that third quarter consumers’ spending likely rose by 3.6%-to-3.8%, after a 3.8% leap in the second quarter. This uplift from the prior trend, about 2%-to-2.5%, likely is due to the tax cuts, so it won’t be sustained," Pantheon said. "We expect sub-3% consumption in the fourth quarter."
The USD/CNY pair was up 0.1% to 6.9255 after official data showed on Tuesday that consumer inflation in September was in line with economists’ forecasts of 2.5%, an increase from the prior 2.3%.
Meanwhile, producer price index (PPI) rose 3.6% in September from a year earlier, compared with a 4.1% increase in August.
Looking ahead, traders are likely to pay attention to the U.S. Treasuries’ semi-annual foreign-exchange report due later today. Reports from last week suggested that the U.S. Treasury is not likely to accuse Beijing of manipulating its currency, but will continue to recommend that China remain on a special monitoring list.
Elsewhere, the AUD/USD pair fell 0.1% to 0.7122. Minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia's October policy meeting released today showed policy makers remained upbeat on the economic outlook overall as the weak Australian dollar continued to support domestic economic growth.
The central bank added that going forward, interest rates are likely to remain on the higher side.