It also enjoyed advances against Indonesia’s rupiah and the Malaysian ringgit. The USA central bank will hold two more policy meetings in 2015, on October 27-28 and December 15-16.
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“There’s a few disappointment about the retail number, and the mixed picture in banks”, said Rick Meckler, president of hedge fund LibertyView Capital Management LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey.
“Equities have been rallying a fair bit and we’ve also got this new 2039 bond that will be issued domestically this week”, he said.
HSBC Global Research said in a report that the start of a Fed tightening cycle would not be USA dollar positive.
The reaction to retail sales may be overdone, as on a year-over-year basis, the data shows the American consumer is doing just fine, said Russell Price, senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Services Inc in Troy, Michigan. “We’ve hit a little bit of softness with hiring and manufacturing activity, but I think those are relatively temporary factors”, he said.
Elsewhere in Asia on Thursday, the Thai baht climbed 0.9 percent, India’s rupee advanced 0.5 percent and the Philippine peso rose 0.3 percent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 20 points, or 0.1%, to 17061 in early trade.
Of the three big USA banks that have posted earnings, only Wells Fargo & Co managed to increase revenue. However, Sydney retreated 0.7 percent after rising every day last week. U.S. light crude settled down 5.1 per cent to $47.10. Currencies and stocks are finding relief from the diminishing Fed bets and paring the year’s losses.
“The dollar surrendered a few strength as fresh signs of a weakening world economy seemingly tossed a U.S. rate hike further into the future”, said Joe Manimbo of Western Union Business Solutions.
The dollar index dipped to 94.539 on Tuesday, its lowest since Sept 18 and last stood at 94.743 .dxy , flat from late USA levels on Tuesday but down slightly so far this week.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six peers, was down about 0.1 percent on Wednesday at 94.707, after falling as low as 94.539 on Tuesday, its lowest since Sept 18.
In the Dow, declines in shares of United Technologies and those of IBM, down 1.1 percent and 1 percent respectively, outweighed gain in shares of UnitedHealth and those of Goldman Sachs, last up 1.8 percent and 1 percent respectively.
Despite the recent uptick, oil prices remain depressed owing to concerns about demand as the global economy stutters, a supply glut and the weakness in China. Prices have more than halved from June 2014.
USA crude was down 0.2 per cent at $46.58 a barrel, although a weaker dollar helped slow its decline.
Global markets went into meltdown in August after China devalued its yuan currency, fuelling anxiety about the state of China’s economy, while traders were also on edge over an expected USA interest rate rise in 2015.
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The Federal Reserve, or the Fed, was tipped to begin hiking interest rates last month for the first time in almost a decade, but ultimately decided the economy wasn’t quite ready for the move.
