Forex View: Fiscal Cliff, Data Are Focus
With Congress returning from a Thanksgiving break this week, negotiations on avoiding the fiscal cliff in the U.S. will be on the minds of currency investors.</br></br>But an array of reports on housing and consumer spending also will command the attention of market participants.</br></br>"The tone of U.S. data has been very good and we would expect that the dollar will see some strengthening if this continues," said Alessio de Longis, a portfolio manager at Oppenheimer Funds in New York.</br></br>Further adding to the landscape in the coming week are a series of speeches from Federal Reserve officials, who could signal the latest likelihood of further bond buying from the central bank, known as quantitative easing. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans and Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher are set to speak Tuesday.</br></br>"If the odds of [quantitative easing] go up, the dollar will sell off, regardless of the fiscal-cliff talks," said Greg Anderson, a foreign-exchange strategist at Citigroup.