Dollar is heading for its best week against the yen in 3 months

The dollar is headed for its best week against the yen in three months on Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and a group of US central bank officials dashed market expectations that interest rates had peaked.

As for cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ether settled near their highest levels in several months with renewed speculation about the imminent approval of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, breathing new life into digital assets.

A large number of Federal Reserve policymakers, including Powell, said on Thursday that they were still not sure that interest rates were high enough to end the battle against inflation, comments that were seen by markets as hawkish and sent the US currency higher.

The dollar settled near a one-year high of 151.355 yen on Friday and touched its highest levels in a week against the Australian and New Zealand dollars.

The US Central Bank officials’ statements came after a week of keeping interest rates unchanged and enhancing expectations that they had reached their peak, causing the dollar and Treasury yields to decline in the aftermath.

However, the dollar regained its footing this week and is on track to record weekly gains of about 1.3 percent against the yen, its best performance since August.

While the Australian and New Zealand dollars are heading towards incurring weekly losses of 2.3 percent and 1.75 percent, respectively, against the dollar, their largest decline in months.

In the latest trading, the Australian dollar reached 0.63615 against the US currency, after falling to its lowest level in a week at $0.6352 earlier in the session.

While the New Zealander recorded $0.5895 in the latest trading, after also reaching its lowest level in a week at $0.5886 earlier in the session.

As for the euro, it stabilized at $1.06665, while the British pound rose 0.05 percent to $1.2227. Both are on track to incur weekly losses of about 0.6 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, stabilized near its highest levels in 18 months and was purchased in the latest transactions for $36,653 after peaking at $37,978 in the last session, the highest level since May 2022.

As for Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency, it jumped to its highest levels since April to $2,136.50.

Digital asset prices rose amid speculation about…