USD gains while investors await Fed decision

USD gains while investors await Fed decision

Written by: PaxForex analytics dept - Friday, 14 December 2018 0 comments

The US currency rose against a basket of major competitor currencies on Friday, while traders are switching their attention to the expected increase in the Fed rate next week. Nevertheless, the uncertainty of the American regulator regarding the financial and credit policy in 2019 restrains the growth of the dollar.

The Fed is expected to raise the interest rate by 25 basis points at the end of its meeting next week, but investors will focus their attention on the forecast of the regulator’s policy for the next year.

The Japanese yen this morning rose 0.1 percent to 113.53 to the USD. At the same time, over the past six sessions, the dollar has risen in price to the Japanese currency by 1.2 percent.

The US dollar index added 0.1 percent to 97.166. Since the beginning of this year, the dollar has grown by 5.3 percent against a basket of major currencies.

Offshore yuan decreased by 0.15 percent against the dollar, up to 6.8881 after the release of weaker than expected Chinese economic data. The growth rates of retail sales in the China in November became the slowest since 2003, and the growth of industrial production - the lowest in almost 3 years.

The Australian dollar fell in price by 0.5 percent to $ 0.7189 on the background of weak data from China - Australia's main trading partner.

The euro fell 0.1 percent to $ 1.1352.

The European Central Bank on Thursday formally completed a large-scale program of quantitative easing, but promised to continue helping the economy, faced with a sudden slowdown in growth and socio-political instability.

The pound sterling lost 0.3 percent, dropping down to $ 1.2627 after British Prime Minister Theresa May asked the EU leaders for new concessions that could help her win approval of the Brexit deal by parliament.