Investors rushed into safe haven-assets on Monday, buying the US dollar and gold as US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
The greenback gained against many of Group-of-10 currencies and gold prices climbed to a record as traders prepared for a potential 25% levy on those products. The Canadian dollar and the euro were the main losers, with the first down as much as 0.6%.
Investors have been piling into the dollar since late last year, concerned about the potential inflationary effect of US trade tariffs and how that might influenc
“The heightened risk of wider disruption to global trade from further tariff hikes is a supportive development for the US dollar,” MUFG FX strategist Lee Hardman said.
Wall Street banks argue that the dollar’s strength has room to run even as traders mull the outcome of Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff threats. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expects the greenback to break parity against the euro, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. predicts the greenback may buy around 1.50 Canadian dollars for the first time in a generation.
“Tariffs can still drive the dollar higher, but visibility is low,” wrote JPMorgan strategists Meera Chandan and Arindam Sandilya, who recommend to stay bullish on the dollar in near term. “We are open minded to the possibility that tariffs could no longer provide the explosive first-quarter dollar strength given the back and forth on delivery.”
While speculative traders trimmed bullish dollar bets in the week ended Tuesday, the derivatives market remained heavily long on the US currency with about $31.2 billion in wagers, according to data by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. At the same time, leveraged funds raised their bets against the euro and Canadian dollar in the week ended Feb. 4, the data show.
e monetary policy. Traders pared bets on further interest-rate cuts late last week after US jobs data showed a slowdown in the labor market.
“The dollar has already priced a decent portion of tariff news,” said Nathan Thooft, a senior portfolio manager at Manulife Investment Management. “We would still expect the dollar to maintain its tailwinds for the foreseeable future driven by tariff uncertainty, a Federal Reserve on pause and generally favorable US growth.”
A gauge of the dollar climbed as much as 0.3% to the highest in nearly a week, extending gains on Friday after Trump signaled that he would announce reciprocal levies on trading partners, without providing details. The world’s reserve currency has surged around 7% from its September low.
