The U.S. dollar is declining against major currencies in trading on Thursday morning after a speech the day before by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
The ICE-calculated index, which shows the U.S. dollar’s performance against six currencies (euro, Swiss franc, yen, Canadian dollar, pound sterling and Swedish krona), is down 0.4%, while the broader WSJ Dollar Index is losing 0.6%.
During a speech at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday, Powell reiterated that the Fed could slow the rise in the prime rate as early as December. “The time to moderate the pace of rate hikes may come as early as the next meeting,” Powell said.
The Fed chairman, meanwhile, tried to balance those words with “hawkish” signals, Market Watch notes. He said that the U.S. Central Bank will have to raise the rate higher than could be expected a few months ago. In addition, Powell made it clear that the issue of rate cuts is irrelevant at the moment.
Another Fed official, Board of Governors member Lisa Cook is confident that the regulator needs to keep raising the rate because inflation is still too high. “We’ve started to get more favorable inflation data. But I would be cautious about drawing big conclusions on just one month’s worth of data,” Cook said during a speech at the Detroit Economic Club.
The euro/dollar pair as of 8:00 a.m. Ksk traded at $1.0445 versus $1.0410 at the close of Wednesday’s session.
The dollar/yen was down to 136.43 yen from 138.05 yen at the end of the previous session.
The pound is trading at $1.2103 versus $1.2058 the day before.
