US dollar traded higher against the Swiss franc on Thursday ahead of the US weekly jobless claims report, after market sentiment reflected the comments made by FED Chairman Ben Bernanke yesterday.
USD/CHF hit a session high at 0.9451 at 7:10 GMT, the highest point since July 16th, after which consolidation followed at 0.9426. The pair was up by 0.18%.
On Wednesday in his semi-annual testimony in front of the Financial Services Committee in Congress Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said, that the central bank expected to begin tapering asset purchases by the end of this year, but added that monetary policy was not on a “preset course”. The easing program could be tapered at a faster pace, at a slower pace or even increased if economic conditions allowed so. The Chairman also said that economy was recovering at a moderate rate, but he saw further need policy to remain accomodative in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, it became clear that Swiss trade balance registered a record surplus in June, higher than expected. It rose to 2.73 billion CHF in June, from 2.12 billion CHF a month ago. Preliminary estimates pointed 2.41 billion CHF. Export figure contracted by 5.5% in June on annual basis, adjusted with inflation, to 16.7 billion CHF. Import, on the other hand, decreased by 6.5% to 14.0 billion CHF during the same month. The value of the exported goods and services during the second quarter of 2013 decreased by 1.8% to 51.2 billion CHF in comparison with Q2 2012. Additionally, it was reported that Swiss watches export declined by 3.1% during June on annual basis to reach 1.9 billion CHF.
Elsewhere, the franc traded lower against the euro with EUR/CHF cross rising by 0.10% to 1.2367.
Later in the trading day the United States was expected to release the weekly government report on initial jobless claims.
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