Dollar Weakens on Speculation Fed to Maintain Stimulus Measures

By Matthew Brown and Ron Harui


Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell for the first time in three days against the euro on speculation the Federal Reserve will keep its stimulus measures in place and ensure interest rates remain low.

The U.S. currency slid against 15 of its 16 major counterparts after Fed Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said in New York yesterday that he supported extending the central bank’s purchases of mortgage-backed securities beyond the first quarter of next year. The yen weakened as commodities and stocks advanced, boosting demand for higher-yielding assets such as the South African rand.

“The central bank language at the moment is still pretty dovish and that’s making riskier assets more attractive than the dollar into the end of the year,” said Mark O’Sullivan, director of dealing in London at Currencies Direct Ltd.

The dollar weakened to $1.4965 per euro as of 8:05 a.m. in London, from $1.4862 in New York last week. The yen depreciated to 132.84 versus the euro, from 132.09, and was at 88.77 per dollar, from 88.88. The South African rand was the biggest gainer versus the dollar, strengthening 1.3 percent to 7.5124.

The Dollar Index, which Intercontinental Exchange Inc. uses to track the greenback against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners, declined 0.7 percent to 75.101. It slid to 74.679 on Nov. 16, the lowest level since August 2008.

Fed’s Bullard

U.S. policy makers repeated on Nov. 4 that they will complete the Fed’s planned $1.25 trillion in purchases of mortgage securities by March and said they will buy $175 billion of agency debt, down from a previous maximum of $200 billion. They kept their benchmark rate in a range of zero to 0.25 percent and repeated borrowing costs will stay low for an “extended period.”

In his speech, Bullard said “unemployment is high, and labor markets are lagging,” while repeating his view that economic recovery in the U.S. has started.

Futures contracts on the Chicago Board of Trade on Nov. 20 showed a 32 percent chance the Fed raise rates by June, down from 68 percent odds a month ago.

The yen and dollar also declined as gold climbed to a record and shares advanced for the first time in three days. Bullion for immediate delivery rose as much as 1.5 percent to $1,167.88 an ounce, and the MSCI World Index gained 0.9 percent.

Benchmark interest rates are as low as zero in the U.S. and 0.1 percent in Japan, compared with 3.5 percent in Australia, attracting investors to the South Pacific nation’s higher- yielding assets.

Futures traders decreased bets the euro will strengthen against the dollar, figures from the Washington-based Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed on Nov. 20.

The difference in the number of wagers by hedge funds and other large speculators on an advance in the euro compared with those on a drop -- so-called net longs -- was 11,956 on Nov. 17, compared with 25,173 a week earlier.