30 Oktober 2013

Dollar Strengthens on Pre-Fed Meeting Positioning; Aussie Slides

Bloomberg (29/10) -- The dollar rose versus most of its major counterparts as the Federal Reserve starts a two-day meeting amid forecasts it won’t announce any major changes to its asset-purchase program.The yen erased gains versus the greenback amid improving jobs and retail sales in Japan ahead of a central-bank meeting later this week. The Australian dollar dropped to a two-week low after Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens said the currency will probably be “materially lower.” The Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Index gained for a third day before the Fed starts its policy meeting.“The dollar is showing strength across the board this morning,” Brian Daingerfield, a Stamford, Connecticut-based currency strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s RBS Securities unit, said in a telephone interview. “It’s already been very well priced-in that the Fed doesn’t change policy tomorrow. With the dollar being sold off over the last couple of weeks, there could be some profit-taking and positioning ahead of the meeting.”The dollar appreciated 0.1 percent to $1.3769 per euro at 8:23 a.m. New York time after earlier gaining to $1.3754. The greenback climbed 0.2 percent to 97.88 yen, reversing a decline that saw it fall as much as 0.2 percent. Europe’s shared currency rose 0.1 percent to 134.77 yen.