© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Rolled Euro banknotes are placed on U.S. Dollar banknotes in this illustration taken May 26, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
By Kevin Buckland
TOKYO (Reuters) – The dollar was set to end the week close to where it started following a roller-coaster week in which currencies were tossed around by shifting risk appetite, with the market’s focus now shifting to next week’s U.S. Federal Reserve meeting.
The is on track to advance 0.1% for the week, having barely budged overnight to stand at 92.782 in Asia on Friday.
That was, however, off the 3-1/2-month high of 93.194 hit on Wednesday as strong Wall Street earnings helped investors regain some of the confidence lost to earlier worries the Delta variant of the coronavirus could derail the global recovery.
The safe-harbour yen weakened less than 0.1% during the week to trade at 110.135.
Meanwhile, the euro was 0.2% lower over the period at $1.1779 after the European Central Bank pledged to keep interest rates at record lows for even longer, as widely expected.
The uptrend in the dollar index is “showing tentative signs” of stalling around 93.0, “but its overall resilience regardless of the shifting risk mood and the ECB’s shift to a more structurally dovish policy stance suggest retracements will likely be limited to the 91.5-92.0 zone,” Westpac strategists wrote in a client note.
“The U.S. is better positioned than others to withstand the spread of the delta variant thanks to its earlier strong vaccination drive.”
The British pound recovered from losses as steep as 1.3% for the week to trade about 0.1% higher at $1.37755, buoyed by the recovery in risk sentiment even with COVID-19 cases broadly on the rise.
However, Australia’s dollar – often viewed as a proxy for risk appetite – was still headed for a 0.2% drop, which would be a fourth straight weekly decline.
With half the Australian population languishing under lockdown, economists speculate the country’s central bank could increase stimulus rather than decreasing it at its next policy meeting.
“The balance of risks point to more weakness in AUD in the near term,” Commonwealth Bank of Australia strategist Joseph Capurso wrote in a client note.
Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.
Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.
