USD/CHF eases below 0.9670 as DXY test 96.50

• USD selloff continues ahead of American session on Tuesday.
• European stocks trade in red ahead of New Year break.
• Coming up: Housing Price Index and CB Consumer Confidence data from US.

After spending the Asian session moving sideways near 0.9680, the USD/CHF pair lost its traction in the last hour and touched its lowest level since early November at 0.9665. As of writing, the pair was down 0.23% on the day at 0.9670.

No love for USD

In the absence of significant fundamental drivers, the greenback struggles to shake off the bearish pressure that arrived after the Christmas break last week. The US Dollar Index, which tracks the USD's performance against a basket of six major currencies, lost 0.28% on Monday and continued to edge lower on Tuesday. As of writing, the index was at its highest level in more than five months at 96.52, erasing 0.23% on the day.

On Monday, the data published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas revealed that the business activity in Texas' manufacturing sector contracted for the second month in a row in December and weighed on the greenback. Later in the day, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index and Housing Price Index data from the US will be the last data releases of the year.

In the meantime, heightened tensions in the Middle East and profit-taking on New Year's Eve seem to be weighing on global equity indexes and helping the CHF preserve its strength. As of writing, Germany's DAX and the UK's FTES indexes were both down 0.7% on the day.

Technical levels to watch for