Dollar in Low Volume Range as FOMC Begins Two-Day Meeting

• Dollar in Low Volume Range as FOMC Begins Two-Day Meeting

Dollar traded in a tight range against most major peers with turnover below average as traders held on to existing positions ahead of the Federal Open Markets Committee two-day policy meeting starting today.

Volume was damped by a looming winter snowstorm in New York which spurred market participants to leave work early Monday. The pound weakened slightly after the U.K. parliament gave Prime Minister Theresa May permission to start Brexit talks, paving the way for her to trigger the move in the last week of March. Australia’s dollar fell after February business confidence declined though losses were stemmed by a mixed set of Chinese economic data.

China’s cumulative retail sales for February missed estimates to fall below 10 percent for the first time since 2003 while fixed-asset investment and industrial output improved.

“While China retail sales disappointed the market consensus, the overall picture including industrial production and fixed asset investment, illustrates solid underlying momentum in early 2017,” said Peter Dragicevich, an FX strategist at Nomura Singapore Ltd. “These positive elements should help stabilize the Aussie dollar following the modest dip earlier today.”