Dollar Down, Investors Await Further Clues on Fed Asset Tapering Timetable

© Reuters.

By Gina Lee

AiVIF.com – The dollar was down on Friday morning in Asia, but remained near a four-month high. Investors now await more hints from the U.S. Federal Reserve on a timetable for asset tapering and interest rate hikes.

The U.S. Dollar Index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies inched down 0.08% to 92.968 by 11:27 PM ET (3:27 AM GMT).

The USD/JPY pair inched up 0.02% to 110.41.

The AUD/USD pair inched up 0.10% to 0.7341 and the NZD/USD pair inched up 0.09% to 0.7006.

The USD/CNY pair was steady at 6.4783.

The GBP/USD pair inched up 0.04% to 1.3810. The pound hit a two-week low of $1.3794 during the previous session, even as the GDP for the second quarter rose a slightly better-than-expected 22.2% year-on-year. The GDP grew 4.8% quarter-on-quarter.

The latest U.S. economic data, released on Thursday, said the producer price index grew 1% month-on-month in July. Although the consumer price index released a day before suggested that inflationary pressures are peaking, the fact that they remain could push the Fed to begin asset tapering.

Several Fed officials called for asset tapering to begin in the coming months, in contrast to the more dovish policies of other central banks such as the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank.

Despite Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s most recent dovish comments putting him at odds with some of the regional Fed presidents, expectations of an asset tapering announcement by the end of 2020 are growing.

"The focus is shifting to the employment from inflation. While we still need to monitor the impact of the COVID-19 Delta variant, if we have a strong payroll growth for the next few months, then there should be a tapering announcement from the Fed," Sumitomo Mitsui (NYSE:SMFG) Trust Asset Management senior economist Naoya Oshikubo told Reuters.

The U.S. data also said that 375,000 initial jobless claims were filed throughout the week, which was lower than the 387,000 claims filed during the previous week.