Article by ForexTime
The US dollar is on track for a third week of gains, helped higher by Fed rate hike expectations as soon as next month. After a hawkish FOMC minutes that was released on Wednesday, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley on Thursday said the U.S. economy could be strong enough to warrant a rate increase in June or July.
His comments reinforced surprisingly clear signals of a possibly imminent rate hike in minutes of the Federal Reserve’s April policy meeting and underpinned an already-firm greenback.
The US dollar index held at its highest in nearly two months against a basket of major currencies in Asian trading on Friday.
USDJPY reached a three-week high of 110.39 on Thursday but eased slightly by early Friday as weakness on Wall Street, hit by revived prospects of a near-term U.S. rate hike, shored up the safe-haven yen.
EURJPY eased to 123.22, though it remained tightly range-bound since bouncing off a three-year trough of 121.48 early this month.
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EURUSD hovered around $1.1200, having touched its lowest in over seven weeks at $1.1180.
GBPUSD reached a two-week high of $1.4663 and was last at $1.4598.
AUDUSD stood little changed at $0.7233 after briefly dipping below 72 U.S. cents for the first time since early March.
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