NEW YORK: The US dollar lost in late trading on Thursday, after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the US central bank would be “proceeding carefully” on further interest rate hikes, reported Xinhua.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, fell 0.29 per cent to 106.2469 in late trading. “Tight policy is putting downward pressure on economic activity and inflation,” Powell said
during a discussion at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday. “A range of uncertainties,
both old and new, complicate our task of balancing the risk of tightening monetary policy too
much against the risk of tightening too little.”
He also indicated that soaring bond yields could help the Fed slow the economy, further cooling inflation and possibly signaling the end of rate hikes. “Powell continued to leave optionality open for the Fed, in terms of future rate hikes, but did nothing to change the narrative that the Fed will keep rates unchanged at their next meeting and is relatively likely to keep them unchanged for the rest of this year as well,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance. – BERNAMA-XINHUA
