The market's focused on the potential for the Fed to pause. That could be sooner rather than later.

The dollar is definitely swimming against the tide, trying to make further gains against the twin deficits.

The dollar is starting to show some gains as the report came in stronger than expected across the board; new orders, employment, prices paid.

The dollar is weaker initially across the board after the release of the minutes. On your first read through you get the indication they may not be as aggressive as some had been predicting.

The dollar reacted to data strength initially, but for the euro there is buying interest around $1.2230.

The dollar should remain firm. The ECB may not be as aggressive as the Fed and that should lead to dollar gains in 2006.

Come the Fed meetings around April, May, June next year, this may have an impact.

Interest-rate differentials are what are helping the dollar right now. The difference between U.S. and other investment horizons has widened of late.

If unit labor costs are not increasing as much as we initially expected, that would get the Fed to pause (rate hikes) sooner than expected.

That really backed up the fact that strength is still expected in the economy, which means more rate hikes to keep inflation at bay, so that has supported the dollar this afternoon.