Super dollar barely budges as it digests Fed minutes

He dollar index, which compares the US currency with a basket of six leading pairs, operates stable at 104.48 units.

The coin advanced 0.36% on the evesince the minutes of the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC, for its acronym in English) of the Fed, held on January 31 and February 1, showed that almost all monetary authorities were in favor of slow down rate hikesbut they also indicated that curb inflation unacceptably high would be the “key factor” when deciding how much more rates would have to rise.

“Participants generally noted that upside risks to the inflation outlook remained a key factor determining the policy outlook,” and that interest rates would have to rise and stay high “until inflation is clearly on the path of 2%.”

The impact of the minutes was somewhat less, as the meeting preceded a series of reports released in February, most notably the employment datawhich showed that the US economy is doing well, giving the Fed more room to raise rates to reduce inflation.

The futures traders tied to the Fed’s policy rate largely clung to the view that the central bank will continue to raise rates in a quarter point in their next three meetings.

The recent rise in these expectations has made the dollar index rise steadily from a low of 100.8 hit in early February, but is still very far from its 20-year high of 114.78 reached in October, at a time of fear about the health of the global economy and when the Fed was raising rates more aggressively than other central banks around the world.

On the other hand, the pound sterling operates stable at 1.2045 dollars, the Swiss franc is trading flat at 0.9315 units per dollar and the Australian dollar It is up 0.36% to $0.6823, after falling to a nearly seven-week low of $0.6795 on Wednesday.