2019.05.2017:15:00UTC+00Dollar Stays Subdued As Traders Look For Direction

The dollar stayed mostly subdued against major currencies on Monday, as traders awaited developments on U.S.-China trade front and looked ahead to the minutes of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting last month.

Data on existing home sales and durable goods orders are also due this week.

Markets were also weighing the impact of U.S.'s decision on Chinese technology giant Huawei on the global technology scene.

Fairly upbeat data on consumer sentiment, jobless claims, housing starts and Philadelphia are manufacturing activity limited the dollar's weakness.

The U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency last week to protect U.S. computer networks from attack by "foreign adversaries".

The Commerce Department then added the Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co and 70 affiliates to its "Entity List", which bans the Chinese company from buying components and technology from US firms without prior approval from the US government.

Following this move, Google has suspended some of its business with Huawei, cutting off transfer of hardware, software and technical services. German chipmaker Infineon has suspended shipments to Huawei.

China has accused that the U.S. is having "extravagant expectations" with regard to a trade deal.

The dollar index, which advanced to 98.04, retreated to 97.88 subsequently, before edging up to 97.95, still down from previous close.

Against the euro, the dollar was down 0.04% at 1.1166 a euro.

Against British Pound Sterling, the greenback gained 0.13%, with a sterling fetching $1.1221, compared to $1.2738 on Friday.

The Japanese yen was stronger by 0.1% at 110.04 a dollar.

The dollar was little changed against the Aussie, Swiss franc and the loonie.

In economic releases today, the euro area current account surplus dropped to a seasonally adjusted EUR 25 billion in March from EUR 28 billion in February due to a fall in primary income, data from the European Central Bank showed.

Explore, Profit, Subscribe! Intelligent Investor. Sign up for FREE 7-day Trial. The visible trade surplus decreased to EUR 24 billion from EUR 26 billion, while services surplus rose to EUR 8 billion from EUR 7 billion.

British households' financial wellbeing deteriorated at the fastest pace since September 2017, survey data from IHS Markit showed.

The household finance index, which measures households' overall perception of financial wellbeing, dropped to 42.5 in May from April's three-month high of 43.8.

The score indicated the strongest level of pessimism towards current financial wellbeing among U.K. households since September 2017.