In prepared remarks on the regional economy, Dudley said other industries in NY are making up for job growth on Wall Street. Several Fed policymakers, however, said a slowdown in the future pace of hiring would argue against a near-term hike, and FOMC members said they wanted to leave their policy options open. The dollar fell to 0.9552 Swiss francs from 0.9618 Swiss francs, and it inched down to 1.2772 Canadian dollars from 1.2848 Canadian dollars. The Wall Street Journal Dollar Index, which measures the American dollar against 16 other foreign currencies, fell 0.2% to 86.21. CME Group’s FedWatch tool implied traders saw a 47 percent chance of a rate rise at its December meeting, down from 58 percent shortly before the release of the minutes. It also gained 0.5 percent to 86.20 pence per euro.
Advertisement
The US Federal Reserve has released the minutes from its July FOMC meeting, in which participants declined to raise interest rates. It has made session high at 1.2787 and lows at 1.2762 levels. “Indeed, these reports reinforce my view that labor market conditions continue to improve”.
West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, added 2% to $47.75 a barrel on Thursday. The pound was at US$1.3170, up from US$1.3038.
AUD/USD is supported around 0.7652 levels and now trading at 0.7688 levels.
The committee has left rates unchanged since voting in December previous year to raise them from near-zero levels, marking the first increase in almost a decade. The dollar was down 0.79 percent against the franc at 0.9538 franc and was down 0.29 percent against the yen at 99.95 yen.
The unemployment rate may overstate the degree of tightness in the labor market because discouraged workers are coming back into the job market, he said.
However, Dudley’s hawkish comments were ignored by investors in the currency markets where the USA dollar fell against the basket of major currencies. Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 6 points, or 0.12 percent, on volume of 18,892 contracts.
S&P 500 e-minis were down 2.25 points, or 0.1 percent, with 129,629 contracts traded at 8:32 a.m. ET (1232 GMT).
However, the committee “recognized that progress on the inflation front has been very slow, and a number of members prefer to see clearer evidence that inflation is moving closer to the 2 percent inflation objective before raising rates again”.
In the USA, the yield on 10-Year Treasury notes declined 0.022 percentage points to 1.536% as prices rose 7/32 to 99 22/32. The session high of $51.05 was its highest since June 23.
The weaker dollar was an additional help to commodities, but crude prices were slightly depressed by the prospect of record Saudi output.
Advertisement
Higher rates tend to weigh on gold, since the metal pays its holders nothing and struggles to compete with yield-bearing assets like Treasurys when borrowing costs rise. Silver was up 0.5% at $19.77 an ounce, after touching a more than three-week low on Wednesday.
