Dollar supported by positive jobs data

Published: 9 Jan at 9 AM Tags: Euro, Dollar,

The publication of Federal Reserve meeting minutes for last month indicate that the central bank is serious about gradually winding down its economic stimulus programme. This has helped to support gains made by the dollar recently. In December the Fed announced that it would be reducing its $85 billion bond buying each month by $10 billion.

The move has helped the dollar index to climb to a six-week high of 81.145. As economic data released by the US continues to show improvement some analysts believe the Fed could speed up the pull back of quantitative easing.

The dollar is currently trading at 104.85 yen, a drop of 0.3 per cent and down from last week’s peak of 105.44 yen. The euro is down against the dollar by 0.3 per cent to $1.3568. The single currency has also hit a one year low against the pound at 0.8252.

Because there has been a great deal of talk about the Fed reducing stimulus over the past few weeks dollar trading has been muted. The bank has also said that it has no plan to increase interest rates in the near future.

An ADP report published earlier shows that 238,000 jobs were added by employers in the US during December. The figure was better than anticipated.