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- The US Dollar recovers on Wednesday, traders mulling upcoming President Trum speech.
- Markets see rate cut bets by the Fed increase with Tump’s tariffs set to kick in at the start of March.
- The US Dollar Index (DXY) resides near yearly lows, looking for a bounce.
The US Dollar Index (DXY), which tracks the performance of the US Dollar (USD) against six major currencies, orbits around 106.50 at the time of writing on Wednesday after not making any positive impressions in February. The DXY Index holds near yearly lows as traders shun the Greenback in a flight to safe havens from United States (US) President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which are set to kick in on March 4 for Mexico, Canada, and China.
Meanwhile, traders are seeing a second element of a weaker greenback. For the first time this year, Federal Reserve (Fed) rate cut bets are pricing in two rate cuts for 2025. The move comes as the interest rate gap between US yields and other countries narrowed, triggering a weaker US Dollar overall. It comes just days before the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) data, which will be released on Friday.
Daily digest market movers: More speeches ahead
- At 14:00 GMT, US President Donald Trump will be speaking with the media.
- At 15:00 GMT, New Home Sales are expected to slow down to 0.68 million units for January compared to the 0.698 million units a month earlier.
- At 17:00 GMT, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Raphael Bostic participates in a moderated discussion at the Urban Land Institute in Atlanta.
- At 18:00 GMT, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin delivers a speech, “Inflation Then and Now”, at the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce, Arlington.
- Equities are brushing off the negative tone from Tuesday and are up across the board on Wednesday.
- The CME FedWatch tool shows an uptick in chances for an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve (Fed) in June, backed by the drop in US yields this Wednesday. Currently, the tool projects a 66.2% chance of interest rates being lower than current levels compared to 33.8% for no rate cut
- The US 10-year yield trades around 4.30%, further down from last week’s high at 4.574%.
US Dollar Index Technical Analysis: Yields to be predicting outcome
Lower US Yields drive theUS Dollar Index (DXY) into the ground. The dive in US yields only picked up speed after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that US rates would come down anyway, even without the Fed. Expect to see the DXY dive lower to the long-awaited 106.00 barrier.
On the upside, the DXY index is trying to recover the 106.52 (April 16, 2024, high) level on Wednesday after breaking and closing below it the prior day. Further up, the 100-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) could limit bulls buying the Greenback near 106.71. From there, the next leg could go up to 107.35, a pivotal support from December 2024 and January 2025. In case US yields recover and head higher again, even 107.96 (55-day SMA) could be tested.
On the downside, if the DXY cannot recover the 106.52 level, another leg lower might be needed to entice those Dollar bulls to reenter near 105.89 or even 105.33.
US Dollar Index: Daily Chart
US-China Trade War FAQs
Generally speaking, a trade war is an economic conflict between two or more countries due to extreme protectionism on one end. It implies the creation of trade barriers, such as tariffs, which result in counter-barriers, escalating import costs, and hence the cost of living.
An economic conflict between the United States (US) and China began early in 2018, when President Donald Trump set trade barriers on China, claiming unfair commercial practices and intellectual property theft from the Asian giant. China took retaliatory action, imposing tariffs on multiple US goods, such as automobiles and soybeans. Tensions escalated until the two countries signed the US-China Phase One trade deal in January 2020. The agreement required structural reforms and other changes to China’s economic and trade regime and pretended to restore stability and trust between the two nations. However, the Coronavirus pandemic took the focus out of the conflict. Yet, it is worth mentioning that President Joe Biden, who took office after Trump, kept tariffs in place and even added some additional levies.
The return of Donald Trump to the White House as the 47th US President has sparked a fresh wave of tensions between the two countries. During the 2024 election campaign, Trump pledged to impose 60% tariffs on China once he returned to office, which he did on January 20, 2025. With Trump back, the US-China trade war is meant to resume where it was left, with tit-for-tat policies affecting the global economic landscape amid disruptions in global supply chains, resulting in a reduction in spending, particularly investment, and directly feeding into the Consumer Price Index inflation.