· The dollar hit its lowest against the euro and Swiss franc in more than a year on Tuesday, with the broader dollar index touching a more than 10-month low, on reduced confidence in U.S. President Donald Trump's agenda and jitters over hawkish central banks abroad.
Traders also remained doubtful the Federal Reserve would be able to raise interest rates again this year, while other central banks including the European Central Bank and Bank of England have signalled a more hawkish bent towards tightening policy.
- The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, touched its lowest since early September of 94.476. The dollar touched 0.9525 franc, its lowest against the Swiss currency since late June 2016, while the dollar hit a three-week low against the Japanese yen of 111.69 yen.
- The euro touched strongest since early May 2016. The euro was firm at $1.1551 EUR=, having made a 14-month top at $1.1583. Investors were wary of pushing the euro too far in case a European Central Bank policy meeting on Thursday proved less hawkish than bulls were betting on.
- The dollar index has fallen 7.5 percent since the start of the year, partly on the doubts over Trump's fiscal stimulus agenda, with much of the downdraft starting in early March.
· Republicans in Congress unveiled a fiscal 2018 budget plan as a first step to major U.S. tax reform on Tuesday, only to face the same divisions between conservatives and moderates that helped killed their efforts to replace Obamacare.
The $4 trillion spending blueprint, released by the House of Representatives budget committee, could become a new flashpoint for Republican in-fighting because it links future tax cuts for businesses and individuals with $203 billion in mandatory spending cuts that would reduce benefits for the poor.
The Republican push to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, collapsed in the Senate late on Monday after a tug-of-war between party moderates who wanted to preserve healthcare benefits for lower-income Americans and conservatives who wanted to scale them back.
· U.S. President Donald Trump is looking for ways to defend American-made products by certifying legitimate U.S. goods and aggressively going after imported products unfairly sporting the "Made in America" label, the White House said on Tuesday.
· Oil prices rose slightly on Tuesday as Saudi exports fell and solid demand soaked up some of what is seen as an oversupplied market, but Ecuador's decision to opt out of an OPEC-led supply reduction pact complicated the outlook.
· Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 settled up 42 cents at $48.84 a barrel, while U.S. light crude oil CLc1 settled up 38 cents at $46.40.
· Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports in May fell to 6.924 million barrels per day (bpd) from 7.006 million bpd in April, official data showed on Tuesday.
· Meanwhile in a sign of strong demand, data on Monday showed refineries in China increased crude throughput in June to the second highest on record.
· Although many OPEC countries have restricted production, others including Nigeria and Libya are allowed to increase output.
· Ecuador said it would no longer comply with an agreed OPEC production cut of 26,000 bpd due to the country's financial difficulties.
Oil Minister Carlos Perez said Ecuador was cutting only 60 percent of that figure, putting current output at 545,000 bpd.
Reference: Reuters
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