US dollar rallies on month-end buying; traders await economic data

Reuters

US dollar rallies on month-end buying; traders await economic data

2024 8월 28, 오후 3:26 GMT

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Dollar set for sharp monthly drop

Traders await Nvidia earnings, U.S. and euro zone inflation data

Bitcoin falls sharply

Adds new comment, byline, datelines, FX table, updates prices

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, Brigid Riley and Sruthi Shankar

NEW YORK/TOKYO/BENGALARU, Aug 28 (Reuters) -The U.S. dollarrebounded on Wednesday due to month-end buyingafter recent declines that pushed it to its weakest in more than a year, astraders awaited economic data that could determine the pace of the Federal Reserve's imminent easing cycle.

Sharp bouts of volatility hit the foreign exchange markets this month as worries around a potential U.S. recession and hawkish signals from the Bank of Japan (BOJ) hammered the dollar and sent other major currencies soaring.

The dollar index =USD, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, rose 0.4%to 100.99, on pace for its largest daily percentage gain since mid-June.

For the month of August, however, the greenback has fallen 3.4%, its worst monthly decline sinceNovember 2023. Itreached a 13-month low of 100.51 in the previous session, weighed downby a recent sharp re-evaluationof expectations for Fed rate cuts.

"The dollar's rise today is warranted given the move lower in the dollar this month. We have seen a sharp depreciation in the dollar, being down 5% in the second half of 2024," said Boris Kovacevic, global macro strategist at Convera in Vienna, Austria.

"Looking at the flows, I would attribute the dollar bid today to the usual month-end flows, especially given the fall in the dollar this month."

Investors across the board expectthe Fed tobegin cutting interest rates next month following Chair Jerome Powell's dovish tilt last week, with the debate now centred on whether or not it will be a super-sized 50-basis point cut, or the standard 25-bp easing.

Current pricing indicateda 35% chance ofthe larger cut, slightly down from 37% late on Tuesday,according to LSEG calculations.Markets were also pricing in about 105 bpsof easing by the end of the year.

"The overall Fed narrative is obviously negative for the dollar and attributed to the expectations of aggressive policy easing by the Fed, rightly or wrongly," Kovacevic said.

Traders also awaited earnings from artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia NVDA.O, which has sparked a frenzy on Wall Street and beyond in recent years. The dollar has also beensensitive to moves in equity markets this year

DATA AHEAD

A preliminary estimate for U.S. gross domestic product in the second quarter is due later this week, along with the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, the Fed's preferred inflation measure.

But with attention shifting from inflation to the strength of the economy, the importance of this week's PCE data is "debatable", said Matt Simpson, senior market analyst at City Index:

"It will require a strong upside surprise to dispel expectations of multiple Fed cuts."

But given thatmarkets have been pricing in easing from September for weeks now, downside momentum on the dollar appears to be waning, with support built up around 100.18/30 in the dollar index =USD, Simpson said.

Against the yen, the dollar rose 0.3% to 144.45 yen JPY=EBS, moving away from Monday's three-week low.

The euro EUR=EBS slid 0.5% to $1.1132, still within reach of the 13-month peak touched at the start of the week.

Investors await the release of euro zone August inflation data later in the week, which could provide clues about the European Central Bank's monetary policy path.

Sterling GBP=D3 dipped 0.3% to $1.3223, after hitting its highest since March 2022 on Tuesday as traders bet that theBank of England will go slower on monetary policy easing than the Fed.

The Australian dollar AUD=D3 rose to a nearlyeight-month high against the U.S. currency afterdata showed domestic inflation slowed to a four-month low in July, but the general progress on tempering price gains disappointed. The Aussie was last little changed atUS$0.6792.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin BTC= was last down 4.2% at $59,273 BTC=, part of a broader retreat in digital currency prices, as the initial boost from Powell's strong signal on rate cuts faded.

Currency bid prices at 28 August 03:04 p.m. GMT
Description	RIC	Last	U.S. Close Previous Session	Pct Change	YTD Pct	High Bid	Low Bid
Dollar index	=USD	101	100.6	0.4%	-0.36%	101.16	100.59
Euro/Dollar	EUR=EBS	1.1124	1.1184	-0.55%	0.77%	$1.1184	$1.1105
Dollar/Yen	JPY=D3	144.56	144.01	0.34%	2.45%	145.035	143.785
Euro/Yen	EURJPY=	1.1124	161	-0.12%	3.32%	161.37	160.46
Dollar/Swiss	CHF=EBS	0.8428	0.8416	0.14%	0.14%	0.8452	0.8412
Sterling/Dollar	GBP=D3	1.3206	1.3261	-0.38%	3.81%	$1.3261	$1.1105
Dollar/Canadian	CAD=D3	1.3459	1.3444	0.12%	1.54%	1.3479	1.3441
Aussie/Dollar	AUD=D3	0.6786	0.6793	-0.07%	-0.43%	$0.6813	$0.6771
Euro/Swiss	EURCHF=	0.9375	0.9412	-0.39%	0.96%	0.9419	0.9371
Euro/Sterling	EURGBP=	0.8422	0.8434	-0.14%	-2.84%	0.8439	0.8411
NZ Dollar/Dollar	NZD=D3	0.6241	0.6253	-0.15%	-1.2%	$0.6254	0.6224
Dollar/Norway	NOK=	10.4845	10.4588	0.23%	3.45%	10.5451	10.4511
Euro/Norway	EURNOK=	11.6638	11.7041	-0.34%	3.92%	11.7416	11.661
Dollar/Sweden	SEK=	10.185	10.1492	0.35%	1.17%	10.2147	10.1448
Euro/Sweden	EURSEK=	11.33	11.3517	-0.19%	1.84%	11.3656	11.3196

World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E

Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Brigid Riley in Tokyo and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Miral Fahmy, Mark Potter and Kevin Liffey

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