The U.S. dollar edged higher on Wednesday, taking in stride the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s September meeting that showed a substantial majority of policymakers backed its outsized 50-basis point rate cut.
Traders also digested comments from Fed officials and kept their powder dry for Thursday’s release of September’s consumer price index.
Investors were confident that the central bank will not continue easing so aggressively, and minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee were out of date after last Friday’s robust nonfarm payroll data caused markets to reprice near-term Fed rate cut expectations.
“The market has been building up to the minutes for a couple of days now, both the minutes and the inflation report. So, the dollar index has been moving up higher and clearly the tipping point was the strong U.S. jobs report,” said Amo Sahota, executive director at Klarity FX in San Francisco.
Sahota said it looked like Fed Chair Jerome Powell had to convince more participants than originally thought who had supported only a quarter-point cut. The minutes said “a few others indicated they could have supported such a decision.”
Only one, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman, actually dissented.
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Lorie Logan on Wednesday said she supported last month’s outsized interest-rate cut but wants smaller reductions ahead, given “still-real” upside risks to inflation and “meaningful uncertainties” over the economic outlook.
On the docket later are Boston Fed President Susan Collins and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly.
Looking at the fed funds futures term structure, traders see about an 83% chance of a 25 basis point cut at the November meeting, and about 50 bps more by year-end, according to LSEG calculations. Odds for the Fed standing pat next month are 17%.
The euro extended its sell-off to a two-month low against the greenback, and was last off 0.36% at $1.094. Dollar/yen rose 0.72% to 149.26, topping Monday’s high to reach its priciest since Aug. 15.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, extended its rally to the highest since Aug. 16 and was 0.38% higher at 102.88.
The yen has been whiplashed since Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, known for being a critic of easy monetary policy, surprised markets with recent remarks that the nation is not ready for further rate hikes.
