U.S. Dollar Index chart breakdown warns that further losses loom

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The ICE U.S. Dollar Index fell through important chart support Tuesday, sending a message that further losses may be looming. The index DXY, -1.13% , which tracks the U.S. dollar’s performance against a basket of rivals, sank 1.2% in afternoon trading to put it on track for its lowest close since April 2022. The selloff comes after relatively tame consumer-inflation data for June sent Treasury yields lower, meaning investors who bought dollars so they could purchase U.S. debt instruments were making less money. Read MarketWatch’s Bond Report column. The dollar index dropped below where it had bottomed during previous selloffs in February, April and May, around the 101 level. FactSet, MarketWatch “With headline inflation continuing to moderate, yield differentials between the U.S. and other countries will be perceived as less attractive by global bond investors,” Janney technical analyst Dan Wantrobski wrote in a note to clients. “This, plus the added nuance of recession creeping into the narrative, could lead to further weakness in the U.S. dollar in our view.” Read: Fed’s Beige Book points to continued slow economic growth Also read: Fed’s Williams says economy won’t hit its weakest point until next year The dollar index was already in a precarious technical position. After the sharp drop in late 2022 through January 2023, it could never mount much of a bounce. The rally to the early March recovery peak retraced less than one-third of the decline from the two-decade high in late September to the initial low in early February. And as Wantrobski noted, the dollar has stayed below its 200-day moving average, which many chart watchers use to define the long-term trend, as it has remained range-bound through the entire first half of 2023. FactSet, MarketWatch Looking below, Wantrobski sees strong support in the mid-90s range. That was a support zone seen in early 2022, just before the big rally, which was fueled by expectations of — and the actual start of — the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate-increase cycle in March 2022. And below that, the dollar’s first-half 2021 lows in the 89-to-90 range should provide support.