On Tuesday, the evergreen buck held ground during Asia trade, underpinned by soaring confidence that the Fed could increase interest rates later this year, while the New Zealand dollar stood still notwithstanding an expected rate drop later this week.
Fed funds futures prices showed that market participants now see nearly a 50-50 probability of an American rate lift by December, as CME Group’s Fed Watch tool states. It compares with 30% as recently as the previous week, before the better-than-expected nonfarm payrolls report on Friday.
The dollar index, gauging the greenback’s strength against a basket of six main currencies, erased earlier minor losses and soared 0.1% to 96.474.
It held well higher last week’s low of 95.003, that was its lowest value since late June.
The major US currency traded steady at 102.42 yen. That was a good distance above the previous week’s minimum of 100.68 yen, while the common currency slumped 0.1%, trading at $1.1077.
