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Federal Reserve Chair Warsh: Inflation trends were not passing the test

Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Kevin Warsh is holding a press conference following the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decision to raise the Funds Target Range to 3.75%–4.00%, as expected. Chair Warsh sounds quite hawkish, and his remarks reflect his concerns about stubbornly high inflation and, hence, justify the decision. Among other things, he noted that inflation trends were not passing the test, and that he had seen little to change that.

Key Warsh comments:

"I am hard-pressed to call financial conditions restrictive.
The view that conditions are not restrictive was widely shared by the FOMC.
The FOMC removed a dose of accommodation.
The summer data does not tell me that the inflation situation has improved.
We must be confident that underlying inflation must be moving to 2% on a timely basis, and the FOMC decided this has not been met."

His words pushed the US Dollar Index (DXY) above 100.00 as market participants rushed to bet on two more Fed rate hikes by year-end.

US Dollar Price Today

The table below shows the percentage change of US Dollar (USD) against listed major currencies today. US Dollar was the strongest against the New Zealand Dollar.

USDEURGBPJPYCADAUDNZDCHF
USD0.63%0.71%0.50%0.50%0.59%0.76%0.74%
EUR-0.63%0.08%-0.11%-0.11%-0.06%0.14%0.12%
GBP-0.71%-0.08%-0.19%-0.20%-0.14%0.07%0.04%
JPY-0.50%0.11%0.19%-0.02%0.06%0.27%0.22%
CAD-0.50%0.11%0.20%0.02%0.08%0.27%0.23%
AUD-0.59%0.06%0.14%-0.06%-0.08%0.20%0.13%
NZD-0.76%-0.14%-0.07%-0.27%-0.27%-0.20%-0.03%
CHF-0.74%-0.12%-0.04%-0.22%-0.23%-0.13%0.03%

The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the US Dollar from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the Japanese Yen, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent USD (base)/JPY (quote).

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FXStreet Team

Composed of a group of economic journalists and FX experts, the FXStreet content team produces and oversees all content published on FXStreet. It provides a purely journalistic approach to the Forex market.

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