Forex Market Update: Dollar Trades Broadly Higher, Yields on 10-Year Treasury Nears 3%
The U.S. dollar traded sharply higher against major traded currencies while yields on benchmark 10-year treasury neared 3% on Thursday as investors expect that the Federal Reserve will soon start to taper its quantitative easing even though the latest FOMC minutes failed to provide any clarity over when the pullback of economic stimulating measures might start.
At last check, the Dollar Index, a gauge on U.S. dollar’s performance against a basket of six major traded currencies, rose 0.29% to 81.62.
The euro was last down 0.28% against the U.S. unit to trade at $1.3318. Even better-than-expected PMI data both from the euro zone and Europe’s growth engine, Germany, failed to lift the euro against turbocharged U.S. dollar.
Emerging markets currencies continued their downward trends against the USD with Indonesian rupiah and Indian rupee being the worst performers among them.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield clocked a fresh two-year high of 2.936 percent on Thursday.
“The high U.S. yields are leading to tighter global financial conditions which are leading to a repatriation of funds back to the U.S. from developing markets which is helping support dollar. In the near term the dollar looks very bullish,” said Lee Hardman, currency economist at BTMU, according to Reuters.
Earlier on Wednesday, the minutes showed that some policymakers favored the start of the tapering process immediately but some officials were cautious. Still, market participants think that the Fed minutes offered few hints that the pullback can start before the year-end.
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Post Written By: Ed Liston
Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht. |