London (awp/afp) – The dollar strengthened against the euro and the British pound on Friday, benefiting from the resilience of the American economy against its counterparts, before a highly anticipated intervention by the Fed chief at the Jackson Hole meeting in the United States.
Around 09:30 GMT (11:30 a.m. in Paris), the dollar rose 0.17% to 1.0792 dollars for one euro, and gained 0.7% against the pound to 1.2593 dollars for one pound.
“Optimism about US growth is pushing the dollar higher,” said Societe Generale analyst Kit Juckes.
“The U.S. dollar has benefited in the near term from heightened investor concerns about growth outside the U.S., notably in China and Europe, as the U.S. economy proves more resilient than expected so far this year. “, explains Lee Hardman, analyst at MUFG.
Market attention is turned to the high mass of central bankers whose annual meeting organized by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) has been held in Jackson Hole, Wyoming since Thursday.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech around 2:00 p.m. GMT is eagerly awaited by the markets. On the side of the European Central Bank (ECB), President Christine Lagarde will also intervene in Jackson Hole on Friday at the start of the afternoon.
Currency traders will be looking for clues on the future of the monetary policy of the two institutions.
Especially since the PMI indices “weaker in the euro zone this week encouraged investors to lower their expectations for a final ECB hike this year, which weighed on the euro”, specifies Mr. Hardman.
Elsewhere in the foreign exchange market, the Turkish lira fell 2.66% to 26.528 pounds to the dollar, suffering from the uncertain monetary policy path of the country’s central bank.
The day before, the currency had indeed jumped against the dollar, soaring by nearly 7% after a colossal and unexpected increase in the key rate of the Turkish central bank, from 17.5% to 25%.
This tightening was “far beyond the most optimistic expectations of the market”, underlines Tatha Ghose, at Commerzbank.
But the analyst reminds that in the event of a pessimistic scenario where “deeply entrenched inflation takes longer to react”, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an ardent defender of low interest rates, could “lose patience and declare that high interest rates don’t work”.
Friday price Thursday price ——————————— 09:30 GMT 21:00 GMT EUR/USD 1.0792 1 .0810 EUR/JPY 157.59 157.65 EUR/CHF 0.9557 0.9561 EUR/GBP 0.8569 0.8578 USD/JPY 146.02 145.83 USD/CHF 0.8855 0.8844 GBP/USD 1.2593 1.2602
afp/buc
2023-08-25 09:50:07
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