Markets may be betting on the greenback to scale new heights, but chances are now is the time to go short, Adrian Zuercher, head of asset allocation for Asia at UBS, said on Thursday.
The dollar has surged in the wake of Donald Trump's surprise election win in the U.S. and as the U.S. Federal Reserve surprised markets at its meeting last week by indicating it would likely hike rates three times next year, a faster rate of tightening than the widely expected two times.
On Wednesday, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, extended recent gains, touching 103.65, according to Reuters data, its highest since December 2002. The dollar index retreated to 102.97 at 10:43 a.m. HK/SIN on Thursday. But Zuercher said the gains may sputter soon.
Greece's euro zone lenders are confident a solution can be found shortly on reactivating short-term debt relief measures that were suspended after Athens decided to make an unexpected payout to poor pensioners, a euro zone source said on Wednesday.
Lenders said last week they were suspending a deal clinched earlier this month to offer Greece short-term debt relief after leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he would grant low-income pensioners a pre-Christmas payout.
Euro zone diplomats dealing with negotiations on the 86-billion-euro ($89.59 billion) Greek bailout, the third since 2010, will not meet again in the coming days, the euro zone source said, without clarifying whether a possible deal could be reached this year or may need to be postponed to January.
India, the world’s second-biggest consumer of gold, is said to be considering cutting the import tax on the precious metal in order to curb its smuggling, according to people familiar with the matter.
The government is planning to reduce the duty to 6 percent from 10 percent now, said the people, who asked not to be named as they are not authorized to speak to the media.
Oil prices slipped in tepid Asian trading on Thursday, dragged down by an unexpected rise in U.S. crude inventories last week and moves by Libya to boost output over the next few months.
But the fall was curbed by a weaker dollar and optimism that crude producers would abide by an agreement to limit output to prop up markets.
Brent LCOc1 futures for February delivery had fallen 4 cents to $54.42 a barrel by 0642 GMT, having previously finished 89 cents lower. Prices rose to $54.69 a barrel earlier in Thursday's session.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 dropped 5 cents to $52.44 a barrel, after closing the previous session down 81 cents. It nudged up to $52.71 per barrel in initial trade on Thursday.
Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said it hoped to add 270,000 barrels per day (bpd) to national production after it confirmed on Tuesday that pipelines leading from the Sharara and El Feel fields had reopened. NOC said that Sharara output reached 58,000 bpd on Wednesday.
Reference: Bloomberg,Reuters
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