More losses for the U.S. Dollar, despite Fed tapering on the horizon

22 Oct 2021

The U.S. Dollar was set for another week of falls on Friday as sentiment continued to lean towards riskier assets.

The Dollar index lost 0.24% on the week at 93.733, as the declines continue from the year-high of 94.565 reached earlier in October. Despite rallying on Thursday from an improvement to U.S. jobs and housing data, it came to an end in Asian trading on Friday. Risk sentiment was given a boost on news that China Evergrande Group averted a default and paid interest on a U.S. Dollar bond, Reuters reports.

Yet traders remain unsure whether the Dollar may continue to fall, or whether this is just a blip: “People are wondering whether we are at an inflection point, as the Dollar has been weakening and that doesn’t really fit with the broader narrative that global growth is cooling and the Fed is on the path to tapering, which should be supportive for the Dollar,” said Paul Mackel, global head of FX research at HSBC.

Moreover, benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields stood at 1.6872% on Friday, a drop from Thursday’s multi-month high of 1.7%, as markets continued to wait for a Fed announcement regarding a timeline to tapering its stimulus.

The Australian Dollar was at $0.7475 on Friday, falling from Thursday’s three-month high, whilst the Canadian Dollar declined to C$1.2352 per U.S. Dollar, down from Thursday’s C$1.2287.

Elsewhere the Pound stood at $1.3798, moving away from a month-high earlier in the week, following mounting expectations of a rate hike to tackle rising inflation. There was little change to the Euro, at $1.1627, whilst the Japanese Yen neared multi-year lows at 114.01 against the Dollar.

In regard to cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin was trading at $63,022 at the time of writing, under Wednesday’s record high of $67,016.