The U.S. dollar continued to trade mix with a host of mixed economic reports and uncertainty on policies from Washington.

No less than a week after Trump announced the tariff hikes on steel and aluminum imports, the U.S. President fired the secretary of state Rex Tillerson.

Tillerson was seen as one of the more balanced policy makers in Washington.

The USD remained subdued against this backdrop reflecting the uncertainty from investors.

Inflation and retail sales reports that were released during the week came out mixed.

U.S. CPI rises at a slower pace. Annual CPI ticks higher

Consumer prices in the United States for the month of February were seen rising at a slower pace.

Matching estimates, headline CPI increased 0.2% on a month over month basis.

However, compared to January’s CPI gains, this was slower as headline CPI rse 0.5% the month before. Despite the slower pace of increase on a monthly basis, annual inflation rate increased 2.2%.

Core inflation rate which strips the volatile food and energy prices were seen rising 1.8% on the year, unchanged from the previous month. On a monthly basis, core CPI was seen rising 0.2% as forecast by economists.

Core consumer prices were however seen expanding for the third consecutive month.

However, the inflation data suggested that consumer prices remained largely muted during the month of February. The inflation report comes after last week, the payrolls report showed tepid wage growth.

The data eased concerns that the Federal Reserve could pursue a more aggressive monetary policy of hiking interest rates.

The FOMC meeting is scheduled to be held on March 20 – 21 and according to the futures markets, interest rates are expected to be hiked at this month’s meeting.

“Today’s data isn’t enough to move the median dot”

to four rate increases from three, said Ilya Gofshteyn, a macro strategist at Standard Chartered Bank.

“The directional impulse of the dollar is not that well defined.”

Investors are:

“taking more of a wait-and-see approach,”

Gofshteyn said.

ECB’s Draghi gives a dovish outlook

The ECB held its ECB Watchers conference in Frankfurt last week.

Number of ECB officials were seen speaking at the event.

However, comments from the ECB President Mario Draghi stood out.

Contrary to the hawkish statement released by the ECB at the March monetary policy meeting, Draghi presented a more dovish outlook on monetary policy and the current developments.

Draghi said that the ECB officials will remain patient, persistent and prudent when it comes to monetary policy as he reiterated that the central bank remains committed to increasing its QE purchases in size and duration if the economy warranted.

The ECB president said that the euro area recovery was still not out of the woods as he cited the high level of uncertainty in global trade and the protectionist policies from the U.S. Draghi also said that the lack of inflationary pressures could mean that officials will have to be cautious on their monetary policy.

Draghi’s comments comes after the ECB had removed its easing biast from the recently held monetary policy meeting.

New Zealand GDP rises 0.6% in Q4 2017

New Zealand’s fourth quarter gross domestic product was seen expanding at a seasonally adjusted rate of 0.6% in the three months ending December 2017 on a quarter over quarter basis.

The data from Statistics New Zealand showed that GDP numbers missed forecasts of an increase of 0.8% during the quarter.

The GDP data was unchanged from the previous quarter however.

In terms of prices, the GDP was seen at 283 billion NZD.

This brought New Zealand’s annual GDP rate to 2.9% which was below forecasts of a 3.1% increase. The 2017 GDP rate was seen rising from 2.7% growth rate registered in the previous quarter.

Commenting on the GDP report, Gary Dunnet, the senior manager at national accounts said that growth was widespread across the service industries.

He said that business services, rental hiring and retail estate services added to the growth.