The aggressive US central bank speech fails to support USD

The dollar struggled to rally on Thursday even though policymakers at the US Federal Reserve reaffirmed their commitment to fighting inflation, while the Australian dollar jumped after China eased restrictions on coal imports from Australia.

The minutes of the Federal Reserve’s December monetary policy meeting, released last night, showed that officials agreed that the US central bank should slow the pace of large interest rate hikes, but remained focused on curbing inflation and worried about any “misperception” in the matter. Financial markets are waning their commitment to it.

But this failed to give a boost to the US currency, which fell 1.4 percent against the Canadian dollar overnight.

In the latest trading, the pound sterling settled at $ 1.2062, after rising 0.76 percent against the US currency in the previous session. The euro rose 0.19% to $1.0624, following gains of more than 0.5% overnight.

Against a basket of currencies, the US dollar index fell 0.14% to 104.06, after falling 0.5% on Wednesday.

The Australian dollar jumped 1.7% overnight on news that China’s planner had allowed three central government-backed utilities and the largest steelmaker to resume coal imports from Australia, the first such move since Beijing imposed an informal ban on coal trade with Canberra in 2018. 2020.

The Australian dollar was stable in its latest trading at $ 0.6835, while its New Zealand counterpart rose 0.11 percent to $ 0.6298, after it increased 0.7 percent in the previous session.

The Japanese yen rose 0.5 percent to 131.97 per dollar on Thursday, after declining as much as 1.2 percent overnight, as dealers bet the Bank of Japan may soon abandon its controversial control of the yield curve.