Global Market: Dollar decline gathers momentum

NEW YORK: Reduced expectations for another US Federal Reserve interest rate hike this year helped drive down the dollar to its lowest in more than 2-1/2 years on Friday and kept gold near a one-year high. The euro hit multi-year peaks in the wake of a European Central Bank meeting, while US crude oil prices tanked more than 3% as powerful Hurricane Irma roared toward Florida. Stubbornly weak inflation continues to surprise Fed policymakers. In a speech on Thursday, New York Fed President William Dudley did not repeat an assertion from three weeks ago that he expects to raise rates once more this year. Also dampening the dollar and lowering the chances of another rate hike was an agreement in Congress to push US debt ceiling talks three months down the road to December, coinciding with the Fed’s policy meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th, 2017.

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