Take oil out of the equation and today is all about US CPI- Dollar index in view

If we take the impact of the oil price on the wider markets, then today is all about the impact of the US CPI report later this afternoon. Of course removing oil from all that is going on right now is pretty impossible. Nevertheless, we are merely trying to underscore the importance of that US inflation data, because any real surprises could have a big impact across all markets and especially US equity futures ahead of the opening and the dollar too. We shall run an update later this morning to cover what the markets are expecting from that August CPI report. 

So, yesterday the dollar index (USDX) did make a move above its 200 day moving average, as we noted at the time. The problem for the US currency was that it could not sustain the move. That 200 day moving average is still in place at 99.13 and it reached 99.19 yesterday ahead of a US close later on, at 99.07. So, as you can see it failed to set a daily close above that technical level. 

The price action today has seen it step back from an earlier high above that moving average again,  at 99.17. The low since then has been set at 99.00. It is going to react one way or the other today and right now it seems like the US CPI holds the key for direction, leaving aside that oil price, if we can. The index is right now at 99.06