Dollar Drifts Lower Against Major Rivals
(RTTNews) - The U.S. dollar drifted lower on Wednesday, posting losses against most of its major counterparts, after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates by 25 basis points and signaled a potential pause in rate hikes.
The Fed omitted a sentence included in the March statement that said the central bank "anticipates that some additional policy firming may be appropriate" to return inflation to 2% over time.
The central bank also tweaked language regarding the outlook for monetary policy, saying "the extent to which additional policy firming may be appropriate" rather than "the extent of future increases in the target range."
However, Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments during his post-meeting press conference led to renewed uncertainty about the outlook for rates. Powell said the central bank would take a "data-dependent approach" to future monetary policy decisions and stressed a decision on a pause was not made at the meeting.
The dollar index, which dropped to 101.07 after the central bank's monetary policy announcement, recovered to 101.37, but still remained in negative territory, losing about 0.6% from the previous close.
Against the Euro, the dollar weakened to 1.1060 from 1.1000, and eased to 1.2563 from 1.2467 against Pound Sterling.
Against the Japanese currency, the dollar weakened to 134.92 yen, dropping from 136.55 yen.
The Aussie is up marginally with the dollar trading at 0.6673, and down nearly 1% against the Aussie at 0.8849. Against the Loonie, the dollar was up marginally at C$ 1.3615.
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