USD/CHF flirting with lows, near 0.97 handle ahead of US data

The USD/CHF pair maintained its offered tone for the third consecutive session and is now on the verge of breaking below the 0.9700 handle. 

The pair has now retreated nearly 150-pips from Wednesday's two-week tops and was being weighed down persistent USD selling bias. In fact, the key US Dollar Index plunged to 4-month lows on Friday and has been one of the key factors weighing heavily on the major. 

Against the backdrop of Thursday's hawkish ECB minutes, the news that German party leaders have reached a breakthrough in coalition talks provided an additional boost to the shared currency and continued exerting downward pressure on the greenback. 

Meanwhile, possibilities of some technical selling following yesterday's bearish break below important moving averages (200 & 100-day), further contributed towards aggravating the bearish slide on the last trading day of the week. 

Today's important US macro releases - consumer inflation figures and monthly retail sales would now be looked upon for some immediate respite for the USD bulls and might provide some trading impetus later during the early NA session.

Technical levels to watch

Weakness below the 0.9700 handle is likely to accelerate the fall towards 0.9660 horizontal level en-route 0.9635-30 support. On the upside, any recovery attempts might now confront immediate resistance near 0.9735 level and is followed by a strong confluence support, turned resistance, near the 0.9775-85 region.