The dollar hovered above a one-week low versus major peers on Friday, taking a breather after its biggest drop in almost a month overnight, as questions lingered about the fate of property developer China Evergrande Group. The yen fell to its weakest since mid-August as Treasury yields pushed to the highest since the start of July. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six rivals, rose 0.08% to 93.175 after sliding 0.36% on Thursday and touching the lowest since Sept. 17 at 92.977. That erased gains ...

Whether investors run for the hills or not after the past week’s stock market shakeout, the episode provides a glimpse of where to run for cover – and the U.S. dollar came up trumps. Dollar cash has routinely provided a haven during moments of global funding stress in the past – most recently as the coronavirus pandemic unfolded in March of last year. The anxiety about a likely debt default by giant real estate firm China Evergrande – and even feared ripple effects across regional property firms, high-yield debt markets ...

Asian shares made cautious gains on Thursday, supported by some positive news from cash-strapped developer China Evergrande Group 3333.HK, while the dollar held near a one-month top after the U.S. Federal Reserve took a hawkish tilt overnight. However, nerves were still frayed about Evergrande’s future and the country’s property sector as a whole, with a major test looming on Thursday when $83.5 million in dollar-bond interest payments by the company were due. “It’s a long way to go yet in terms of this being resolved,” said Kerry Craig, global market ...

The dollar slipped on Thursday off one-month highs reached after the Federal Reserve set the stage for interest rate hikes next year and a pick-up in global market sentiment encouraged traders to foray out of the greenback. The Fed headlined a week of central bank meetings that will likely see Norway become the first developed nation to raise interest rates since the pandemic. The Fed too struck a hawkish tone, setting the stage to start tapering bond purchases in November and at a faster pace than analysts had anticipated. Nine ...

Risk-sensitive currencies such as the Australian dollar and Chinese yuan jumped and the safe-haven yen eased slightly on Wednesday after Chinese property giant Evergrande said it would make an upcoming yuan bond coupon payment, allaying immediate fears of a default. Some of the excitement fizzled, however, after traders realised it was still not known whether the developer would be able to pay the coupon on its offshore dollar bonds, due on Thursday. The Australian dollar rose as much as 0.49% to $0.7268 before giving up part of the gains to ...

This week, six of the G10 central banks announce monetary policy. In this article we provide a short preview of the meetings and the implications for the affected G10 currencies. We summarise our views in the table below, where we also provide the expected ranges for the relative currency pairs and the end-of-the-week break-even on FX straddles, which is a gauge of how wide the options market is expecting to move those pairs. It must be noted that, considering the very risk-off tone that is dominating markets at the start ...

The U.S. dollar stepped back from a one-month high tested overnight as equity market futures moved higher on Tuesday, while investors, bracing for a potential default by property developer China Evergrande, sought safety in the yen. Default fears continued to stalk China Evergrande Group despite efforts by its chairman to lift confidence in the embattled property company. Financial markets looked for possible intervention by Beijing to stem any domino effects across the global economy. “With no signs of a possible solution on the horizon, we see the case for the ...

Sterling hit a one-month low against the dollar on Monday as a global sell-off prompted by China’s struggling Evergrande hit risk-oriented currencies while uncertainties about the Bank of England’s monetary policy and surging gas prices also weighed. At 0827 GMT, the pound was about 0.5% lower against the dollar at $1.3662, its lowest level since Aug. 23. Versus the euro, sterling was down 0.32% at 0.8561 pence, a low not reached since Sept. 9. A sell-off in Asia where the world’s most indebted property developer China’s Evergrande plunged to over ...

The dollar rallied to a month-high in Asia on Monday as looming catastrophe at indebted developer China Evergrande added extra nerves to a cautious mood, with investors bracing for the Federal Reserve to take another step towards tapering this week. In trade thinned by holidays in Japan, China and South Korea, the euro EUR=EBS fell 0.1% to $1.1710, its lowest since late August. The Australian dollar AUD=D3 fell 0.5% to a three-week low of $0.7227 while sterling GBP=D3 and the kiwi NZD=D3 also hit multi-week troughs on the rising greenback. ...

China will “steadily and prudently” promote yuan internationalisation in 2021, and further develop offshore yuan markets, the central bank said on Saturday. Cross-border settlements in the local currency totalled 28.39 trillion yuan ($4.39 trillion)in 2020, up 44.3% from the previous year, the People’s Bank of China said in its 2021 yuan internationalisation report. Cross-border yuan settlements accounted for 46.2% of the overall cross-border settlements, hitting a record high, the central bank said. Cross-border settlements in foreign trade reached 4.78 trillion yuan last year, up 12.7% from 2019, the central bank ...

Although markets have become increasingly aggressive in pricing a UK interest rate rise as soon as next May – several months at least before the United States or euro zone – sterling seems reluctant to follow. Bank of England policymakers meet next week and, according to governor Andrew Bailey at least, they are split evenly on whether the basic conditions for lifting the central bank’s main interest rate from its historic low of 0.1%. Britain’s annual inflation rate raced more than a percentage point above the BoE’s 2% target in ...

The dollar held near three-week highs on Friday after better-than-expected retail sales numbers in the United States boosted bets on the strength of the U.S. economy and earlier monetary policy tightening. By 0720 GMT, the euro had pulled itself into positive territory but at $1.1783 remained close to a three-week low EUR=EBS. U.S. retail sales unexpectedly increased in August, rising 0.7% from the previous month despite expectations of a 0.8% fall, while a business sentiment survey by the Philadelphia Fed also showed a big improvement. The figures helped to curb ...

The dollar traded near the middle of its range of the past month versus major peers on Thursday, as traders looked to next week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting for indications on how soon the U.S central bank will start to taper stimulus. The dollar index =USD, which measures the currency against six rivals, was 0.2% higher at 92.626, little changed from Wednesday. It reached a two-week high of 92.887 at the start of the week, only to drop to a one-week low of 92.321 on Tuesday after a softer-than-expected inflation ...

The dollar held recent ranges against peers on Wednesday after softer-than-expected U.S. inflation figures tempered immediate expectations about Federal Reserve tapering while disappointing Chinese data weighed on the yuan and Aussie. The dollar index =USD stood at 92.632, little changed from Tuesday, when it dropped following the inflation data only to recover on haven demand as stocks slid on Wall Street. The index has meandered between 92.3 and 92.9 over the past week as several Fed officials have suggested the U.S. central bank could reduce its buying of debt securities ...

A digital euro, currently under design by the European Central Bank, should have a limited role initially as it could disrupt the bank sector and overly extend the role of central banking, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said on Tuesday. “A gradual approach might make sense given the risks involved – that means a digital euro with a specific set of features and the option to add further functionalities later,” Weidmann told a conference. The ECB gave the digital euro a green light earlier this summer but the actual launch of ...