Dollar Drop This Week Was Worst Since 2011

(Bloomberg) — The dollar slumped the most since October 2011 after the Federal Reserve reduced projections for interest-rate increases and expressed concern the dollar’s surge is weighing on exports and inflation.

The U.S. currency fell against all of its 16 major peers as banks including HSBC Holdings Plc said the 20 percent surge since August is coming to an end. Economic reports next week may show inflation remains below the Fed’s target, giving the central bank more room to maneuver.

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“You always have to be careful with foreign exchange — it can move very quickly and you can’t imply anything from previous trends,” Charles St-Arnaud, senior economist at Nomura Securities International Inc., said by phone from London. “That’s what happened to the U.S. dollar.”

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 2.2 percent this week to 1,195.01 in New York. The gauge is up 1.9 percent this month and 5.7 percent this year.

The greenback slumped 3.1 percent this week to $ 1.0821 versus the euro, and fell 1.1 percent to 120.04 yen.

Hedge funds trimmed their bullish dollar futures positions to the least since December, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. Net futures position betting on a stronger greenback versus eight major peers in this category reached a record 448,675 contracts in January.

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Fed Policy

Fed policy makers on March 18 lowered their median 2015 forecast for the federal funds rate to 0.625 percent from 1.125 percent three months ago. The slower projected pace of tightening boosted demand for emerging-market currencies, led by a 4.8 percent rally in Russia’s ruble and 3.8 percent surge in Hungary’s forint.

The change in Fed estimates softened the perceived monetary-policy divergence between the U.S. and the rest of the world, which has been a driver of the dollar’s ascent.

Central banks from Sweden to Australia have eased policies this year to spur growth and fight deflation by devaluing their currencies, in turn boosting investors’ demand for dollar-denominated assets. The stronger greenback contributed to weaker exports that would be a “notable drag” on growth this year, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said.

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Economic expansion has slowed in the U.S. this year and the inflation rate has consistently fallen below the Fed’s 2 percent target. Economists forecast the consumer price index rose 0.2 percent in February, following a 0.7 percent decline the previous month.

Dollar Implications

The Fed “can’t ignore the stronger dollar’s implications for growth,” Alan Ruskin, the global head of Group of 10 foreign exchange at Deutsche Bank AG in New York, said by e-mail. “The U.S. dollar’s gains have reached the point where they are willing to indirectly protest dollar strength.”

Fed Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said Friday the central bank should begin raising rates in the middle of this year or later, noting the stronger dollar changed his view to a modest extent, while it was “not a game changer.”

The dollar has gained 19 percent in the past year, the best performance among 10 developed-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes. The euro declined 9.1 percent, while the yen was little changed.

“This is not time to turn bullish with fanciful forecasts — most of the meat of the dollar bull-run is done,” David Bloom, global head of currency strategy at HSBC Holdings in London, said in an interview Friday on Bloomberg Television. “The Fed rate hike is in the price. The big motivation behind the dollar bull market has dried up.”

HSBC cut its 2016 forecast for the dollar to $ 1.10 per euro on Thursday, from $ 1.05.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Wong in New York at awong268@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net Paul Cox

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