On Thursday, the U.S. dollar inched down as traders started to factor in aggressive easing by the Fed to fight an easing economy.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures its strength against 6 other major currencies, traded 0.2% down at 102.802, near Monday’s 7-month low.
The disappointing nonfarm payrolls release last week eased fears that the U.S. economy was moving into a recession, which may force the Fed to cut rates faster than initially anticipated.
JPMorgan has increased the likelihood of a U.S. recession by the end of the year from a probability of 25% earlier to 35%, citing labor market pressures easing.
According to CME’s FedWatch tool, this led to markets pricing a 100% probability of a 0.50% interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve in September.
Earlier this week there was talk of the possibility of an emergency rate reduction before the in September, although the perceived likelihood of that has eased since then as markets stabilized slightly.
On Thursday, there will be more labor market data to evaluate in the form of weekly jobless claims, and the July U.S. consumer price inflation report will be released next week ahead of the central bank’s Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium the week after.
