Dollar falls broadly uncertainty of next Fed rate hike: Feb, 24, 2017

Market Review - 23/02/2017  22:23GMT  

Dollar falls broadly uncertainty of next Fed rate hike

The greenback remained lower against majority of its peers on Thursday due to lack of clarity surrounding the Federal Reserve's rate hike path together with Trump's tax reforms.  
  
Versus the Japanese yen, dollar met renewed selling at 113.46 ahead of Asian open and retreated to 113.07 in Asia. Intra-day decline accelerated ahead of New York open and tumbled to session lows of 112.55 at New York open due partly to release of weak U.S. jobless claims before staging a minor short-covering recovery in New York morning.  
  
Initial jobless claims were up 6,000 from the previous week at 244,000, the Labor Department said. The previous week's figure was revised to 238,000 from an initial reading of 239,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to rise to 241,000.  
  
The single currency edged lower to 1.0544 at Asian open, then to session low at 1.0538 in European morning. However, euro pared its losses and rose to an intra-day high of 1.0595 in New York morning on dollar's broad-based weakness.  
  
The British pound edged lower to 1.2429 in Asian morning, then marginally lower to 1.2428 ahead of European low but price pared its losses and rallied to 1.2482 in European morning, then to a session high of 1.2517 in New York morning on dollar's broad-based weakness together with cross-buying of sterling especially vs euro.  
  
In other news, Fed's Lockhart said 'recent data pretty supportive of Fed's rate hike plans, with 2 or 3 increases likely this year;Fed balance sheet, even when allowed to decline, will likely stay above historical norms n likely remain at min around $1.5 trln to 2 trln; as long as monetary policy is functioning well, no urgency to shrink balance sheet; Mar is live for a rate hike n data are supportive of considering a move then; personally feels cut-off of half a trln dlrs in assets wud be appropriate to designate systemic institutions.'  
  
Data to be released on Friday:  
  
France consumer confidence, Italy industrial orders, industrial sales, business confidence, consumer confidence, UK mortgage approvals, Canada CPI, U.S. consumer sentiment and new home sales.