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USD/MXN Forecast: Dollar Weakens Below 18 as Carry Trade Pressures Mount

By Christopher Lewis
Senior Technical Analyst

Christopher Lewis is a technical analyst and market commentator at DailyForex with more than two decades of trading experience in Forex and other leveraged markets. Based in Columbus, Ohio, he specializes in chart-based analysis of major currency pairs, stock indices, commodities, and energy markets, focusing on clear support and resistance levels, trend structure, and risk management. Christopher produces daily written and video analysis for tra...

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  • The U.S. dollar continues to weaken against the Mexican peso as rate differentials favor carry trades.
  • A break below 18 pesos reinforces the downtrend, with technical levels pointing toward 17.5 unless risk aversion returns.

The U.S. dollar continues to struggle against the Mexican peso, which makes a certain amount of sense considering that the Federal Reserve is likely to cut rates over the next year or so, while Mexico will offer a more attractive yield. In other words, this is simply the carry trade using the US dollar as a funding currency. This is one of the few bigger currency pairs that you can do this in at the moment. And of course, it has been in a pretty relentless downtrend for the better part of the last seven or eight months because of this.

USD/MXN Forecast 17/12: Dollar Weakens Below 18 (graph)

With that being the case, we have to look at the overall trajectory. And as we are below the 18 Mexican peso level at the moment, it does suggest that we probably go to 17.5 Mexican pesos, as this pair is very technical in its nature and tends to move half of a peso at a time.

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Trend, Levels, and the Carry Trade

When you look at the overall downtrend, it really kicked off in April, and that was when Donald Trump had suggested that maybe there was some leeway with the tariffs. Once that happened, this pair really started to fall apart. There have been times of consolidation, and maybe we're heading into that, but breaking below the 18 peso level for me is a big psychological victory for the Mexican peso bulls and therefore opens up the possibility that we are in fact going to start heading down to that 17.5 peso level.

Which, of course, is an area that when you look at the past, is important, and people have traded it quite aggressively in both directions in the past. So, all these line up quite nicely. The one counterpoint to this might be if we do in fact see some type of massive global slowdown, which, of course, would help the US dollar because people start to look for treasuries for safety.

Right now, though, this looks like a steady-as-she-goes short.

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Senior Technical Analyst
Christopher Lewis is a technical analyst and market commentator at DailyForex with more than two decades of trading experience in Forex and other leveraged markets. Based in Columbus, Ohio, he specializes in chart-based analysis of major currency pairs, stock indices, commodities, and energy markets, focusing on clear support and resistance levels, trend structure, and risk management. Christopher produces daily written and video analysis for traders who rely on technical setups to navigate volatile market conditions

As seen on: Pairs Of Aces Podcast,The Trader Guy, FXEmpire

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