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Dollar steadies as investors await speech from Fed’s Brainard

The dollar was nearly flat against the yen and euro during Asia trade on Monday, with the U.S. currency lacking clear direction ahead of a speech by a key member of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The WSJ Dollar Index BUXX, -0.05% a measure of the dollar against a basket of major currencies, was down 0.03% at 86.48.

Investors are now waiting for by Fed governor Lael Brainard’s speech due later Monday which is scheduled to come just a day before the Fed goes into blackout mode before the Federal Open Market Committee meeting of Sept. 20-21, said Sakai and other market watchers in Tokyo.

Fed's Kashkari sees cure for slow growth in immigration, tax reform

With the Federal Reserve powerless to do much more than it already is, the best route to faster U.S. economic growth is through non-monetary policy approaches such as immigration and tax reform, a top Fed official argued on Monday.

In a 5,100-word essay released just after midnight, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari noted that the U.S. labor market is "closer to normal" but that inflation is still below the Fed's 2-percent target and economic growth is well below precrisis norms.

"Monetary policy is largely doing what it can to support a robust recovery, and what remains are fiscal and regulatory policies," Kashkari wrote in the essay, published on the last day before Fed officials enter a weeklong communications blackout prior to each policy-setting meeting.

Kashkari sketched out a wide range of possible reasons for slow U.S. economic growth, concluding that the most likely causes are an aging population, psychological scarring from the financial crisis that makes households and businesses unwilling to take risks, and "lackluster technological innovation."

Oil prices fall as U.S. drillers add rigs, traders cut long positions

Crude prices fell over 1.5 percent on Monday after U.S. oil drillers added rigs and producers adapt to cheaper crude, with speculators cutting positions betting on further price hikes.

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 were down 86 cents, or 1.87 percent, at $45.02 a barrel.

U.S. drillers added oil rigs for a tenth week in the past 11, according to a Baker Hughes rig count report on Friday. It was the longest streak without rig cuts since 2011.

Speculative oil traders also became less confident of higher oil prices, cutting their net long U.S. crude futures and options positions for a second consecutive week last week, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday.

Reference: MarketWatch,Reuters