By The U.S. dollar stayed weak against most of its major counterparts on Wednesday as traders continued to speculate the Federal Reserve’s take on interest rates.
The dollar regained lost ground a little before the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest monetary policy meeting, but faltered subsequently.
The minutes said a majority of participants expect one more interest rate hike will likely be appropriate.
The projections provided following the meeting forecast one more rate hike before the end of the year, although the minutes noted some officials judged it likely that no further increases would be warranted.
“All participants agreed that the Committee was in a position to proceed carefully and that policy decisions at every meeting would continue to be based on the totality of incoming information and its implications for the economic outlook as well as the balance of risks,” the Fed said.
The minutes said all participants agreed that policy should remain restrictive for some time until the Fed is confident that inflation is moving down sustainably toward its 2% objective.
Data from the Labor Department said its producer price index for final demand climbed by 0.5% in September after advancing by 0.7% in August. Economists had expected prices to rise by 0.4%.
The report also said the annual rate of producer price growth accelerated to 2.2% in September from a revised 2% in August. Economists had expected the pace of price growth to come in unchanged compared to the 1.6 percent originally reported for the previous month.
On Thursday, the Labor Department is scheduled to release its more closely watched report on consumer price inflation in the month of September.
The dollar index climbed to 106.01 from a low of 105.56, but retreated subsequently to 105.72, down by about 0.1% from the previous close.
Against the Euro, the dollar is down at 1.0618, and against Pound Sterling, it is weak at 1.2315.
The dollar is up against the Japanese currency, fetching 149.19 yen a unit. The Aussie is weak against the dollar with the AUD/USD at 0.6413.
Against Swiss franc, the dollar has eased to CHF 0.9021, and against the Loonie, is up marginally at C$ 1.395.
