Dollar rises ahead of Jackson Hole gathering
By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The dollar rose across the board on Thursday as investors awaited Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech on Friday at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium.
Investors are looking forward to Powell's address on monetary policy at 10:05 am ET on Friday for clues to the Fed's thinking on whether it is about done with interest rate hikes and how long it plans to hold rates high.
«I think what we are seeing is largely pre-Jackson Hole position readjustments,» said Stuart Cole, chief macro economist at Equiti Capital in London.
«Nobody knows what Powell is going to say tomorrow and therefore the default currency to move into is the USD,» Cole said.
Two Federal Reserve officials — Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker and Boston Fed President Susan Collins — on Thursday tentatively welcomed a jump in bond market yields as something that could complement the U.S. central bank's work to slow the economy and get inflation back to the 2% target, while also noting they see a good chance that no more interest rate increases will be needed.
Data on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, as labor market conditions remained tight despite the Fed's aggressive interest rate hikes.
«I think possibly the jobless claims numbers have also provided some support for the dollar as they were not as soft as had been feared and go some way to offsetting the downwards revision to the payrolls number we had yesterday,» Cole said.
«But the reaction to them was pretty muted overall, suggesting the Jackson Hole symposium is the main thing on the markets' mind,» he said.
The U.S. dollar index — which measures the currency against six major
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