NEW YORK: The US dollar held steady against other major currencies on Wednesday as traders awaited minutes later in the session from the Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting to glean any potential insights on the outlook for interest rates.
The dollar index - which measures the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, including the euro and Japan’s yen - was basically flat on the day at 103.07, having held in a range of roughly 102.75-103.75 since early June.
The Federal Open Market Committee is due to release the minutes from its most recent policy meeting at 1400 EDT (1800 GMT).
Markets are pricing in an 85.2% chance that the Fed will raise rates by another quarter-point in July but have not warmed to the Fed’s message that there could be another hike later this year.
“We’ll have to see if the minutes play up to how the Fed has really driven home a hawkish message where they’re not done raising rates yet to bring down inflation,” said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Convera in Washington.
The euro rose 0.2% at $1.090, while sterling was up 0.1% at $1.2729.
The dollar hovered around 144.165 yen, below the 145 threshold that prompted intervention by Japanese authorities last autumn. The greenback had last week briefly popped as high as 145.07 for the first time since November.
The dollar-yen rate has broadly moved in sync with the US 10-year Treasury yield, which was roughly unchanged on the day at 3.868% after resuming trade following the US Independence Day holiday on Tuesday.
The Australian dollar fell 0.1% to $0.6683, on course to snap a four-day streak of gains.
Prior to the Chinese services data, the Aussie had been slightly firmer following another stronger yuan fixing from the People’s Bank of China, fueling bets for imminent policy support from Beijing. The yuan rebounded a touch, up 0.2% at 7.2509.
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