The dollar stayed weak ahead of a widely anticipated speech from Federal Reserve governor Ben Bernanke this evening. The US currency came under renewed selling pressure this morning, moving back towards its all-time low against the euro and 26-year low against the pound, with markets positioning themselves for the central bank governor's speech amid a dearth of data in the US and Europe. Though Bernanke is likely to be very theoretical in places, the markets will be monitoring the speech to see if the more hawkish tone in the most recent minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee is retained. Ian Gunner at Mellon Foreign Exchange said markets will be looking out for Bernanke's comments on the inflation outlook, which are "unlikely to be controversial", as well as any comments on inflation targeting and signs that the rate-setters are forming a consensus on how to proceed. Gunner also speculated that Bernanke could talk about the Fed's recent focus on headline inflation rather than the core measure which strips out volatile items like food and energy. "The strength in food and energy prices has become more than a temporary phenomenon and is in danger of influencing price expectations in general. This is potentially the most interesting aspect of his speech today, if he chooses to address it," Gunner said. In any event, analysts doubt that Bernanke's speech will stem the dollar selling tide as interest rate differentials look firmly to the dollar's detriment. "The Fed is on hold, and with the other central banks on a bias to tighten the outlook for the dollar is for weakness," said Divyang Shah at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Elsewhere, the pound weakened slightly after the UK reported its lowest trade in goods deficit in almost two years in May, of 6.3 bln stg, but the currency remained supported by earlier buoyant news from the UK's high streets. The British Retail Consortium said like-for-like sales, which strip out changes in floor space, rose by 3.0 pct in June from the previous year. Predictions were for a slowdown to just 1.0 pct. Meanwhile, Marks & Spencer, the fashion and food retailer, reported a far better than anticipated trading update this morning. "Better than expected BRC figures did little to lift sterling/dollar even though this -- and a robust trading update from Marks & Spencer -- is clearly paving the way for another quick rate hike out of the Bank of England," said David Jones, chief market analyst at CMC Markets. Elsewhere, the Canadian dollar was steady ahead of a rate decision by the central bank today. The Bank of Canada is widely expected to hike interest rates a further quarter point to 4.50 pct following hawkish comments at its last meeting.