The greenback edged up slightly against the major currencies in the Tuesday session, with the exception of the British pound which improved by 0.7%. The major US equity bourses traded flat on the day with the Nasdaq marginally lower by almost 0.4% while the Dow Jones eked out a 0.1% gain. Pushing the US dollar higher was soft economic figures, which quelled global risk-appetite.

The closely watched July consumer confidence fell by more than consensus estimates to a five-month low at 50.4 compared with an upwardly revised reading of 54.3 in June. The July Richmond Fed survey beat calls for a decline to 12, instead printing at 16 versus a 23 print in the month prior. Rounding out today’s reports was the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, which bested calls for a drop in May, rising by 0.47% on a monthly basis versus an upwardly revised 0.61% in April and on a yearly basis, improving to 4.61% versus 3.83% in the previous year.

In the Wednesday session, traders will turn to the June durable goods orders. Consensus forecasts are looking for the headline figure to print at 1.0% in June versus a 1.1% decline in the previous month. Meanwhile, the excluding transportations figure is seen improving by 0.4%, albeit lower than the 0.9% print from May.

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