The dollar has been trending lower ever since the turn of the year. This has been because of the unwinding of the bullish positions that had been accumulated before and after the US election in part as investors began to question how much of the promised fiscal spending President Trump will actually deliver and how this may impact growth and inflation, and in turn interest rates.
Financial markets opened in a bit of a panic mode overnight in the wake of Trump’s failure to repeal Obamacare. Stock index futures slumped while the dollar index fell to its lowest since mid-November as the yen and euro both gapped higher. The dollar’s losses steepened after the London open as the GBP/USD climbed to near 1.26 handle and EUR/USD neared 1.0900. European stock indices bounced off their lows slightly.
The dollar staged a broad-based rally on Thursday to make back some of the losses it had suffered earlier in the week which had been on the back of a poor ISM services PMI reading and last week’s disappointing jobs report.
