By Gina Lee
Investing.com – The dollar was down on Monday morning in Asia, with investors cautiously bullish over the upcoming week of earnings and economic data even as the number of COVID-19 patients shows no sign of slowing down.
Florida reported over 15,000 new cases in 24 hours on Sunday, the highest number in any state since records started. Of the almost 12.9 million global cases, over 3.3 million are in the U.S. as of July 13, according to Johns Hopkins University.
“Rising coronavirus cases are not positive but at the moment, markets seem to think that there is still some distance to a situation where an overflow of the medical system will force them to put restrictions on the economy,” Yukio Ishizuki, senior currency strategist at Daiwa Securities, told Reuters.
Hopes for a treatment for the virus, in the form of a vaccine or drug, is an added boost to investor hopes. Investors also cheered recent economic data indicating recovery from COVID-19 after seeing historic lows during lockdowns.
“We’ve seen a rapid rebound after a rapid decline in various economic data. But looking ahead, the improvement could slow or we could even [see] a deterioration given the second infections,” Masafumi Yamamoto, chief currency strategist at Mizuho Securities, told Reuters.
The U.S. Dollar Index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies slipped 0.17% to 96.448 by 10:03 AM ET (3:03 AM GMT).
The USD/JPY pair was down 0.07% to 106.81.
The AUD/USD gained 0.24% to 0.6965, while the NZD/USD pair was down 0.08% to 0.6574.
The USD/CNY pair was up 0.06% to 7.0033. China is due to release its trade data for June on Tuesday, with a second round, including the second quarter GDP, due to be released on Thursday.
The GBP/USD pair jumped 0.24% to 1.2650.