By Alex Ho
Investing.com – The U.S. dollar slipped on Friday in Asia amid renewed coronavirus fears.
The U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies slipped 0.1% to 99.727 by 12:25 AM ET (04:25 GMT).
Over recent days, markets have cheered signs that the spread of the new coronavirus in China seemed to have slowed, but World health officials’ warning that the virus could break out globally at any timehas gripped investor attention today.
“The number of cases in the rest of the world is very small compared to what we have in China, but that may not stay the same for long,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva on Thursday.
“The window of opportunity we have now may close, so we need to use the window of opportunity we have now by hammering the outbreak in any country,” he noted.
On the data front, the National Association of Realtors will report on January sales of existing residential buildings later in the day.
Existing home sales are expected to have ticked down 1.8% to an annual rate of 5.43 million last month, according to economists’ forecasts compiled by Investing.com.
Manufacturing numbers are also on their way. Traders expect the Markit’s preliminary purchasing managers’ index (PMI) to drop to 51.5. The services PMI is also expected to show a small drop, down to 53.
A host of Federal officials will speak today, including Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan, Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida and Fed Governor Lael Brainard.
Meanwhile, The GBP/USD pair gained 0.1% to 1.2894 as the country reported better-than-expected U.K. retail sales data of 0.9% last month.
The pound dropped yesterday amid falling hopes the U.K. is set to unveil a big increase in fiscal spending next month.
"The U.K. government is unlikely to unveil a big increase in fiscal spending in the March 11 Budget," Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) said. "We don't expect a meaningful fiscal impulse near term."
The USD/JPY pair dropped 0.1% to 111.96 as the Japanese yen attracted some safe-haven demand. Asian equities traded mostly lower today.