The U.S. dollar strengthened against major currencies like the yen and Swiss franc following positive labor market data that indicated the Federal Reserve may hold off on cutting interest rates.
The big picture: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell mentioned at a central banking conference in Portugal that the central bank would wait for more data before implementing any monetary policy easing, although he did not entirely rule out a rate cut in July.
- After the Labor Department’s report showed a significant increase in job openings to 7.769 million in May, the dollar’s losses against the Japanese yen and Swiss franc were minimized, with a decrease of 0.33% to 143.53 against the yen and 0.09% to 0.7925 versus the Swiss franc.
Go deeper: Prior to the release of the labor market data, the dollar had registered a decline of 0.46% against the yen and 0.28% against the Swiss franc. This indicates a market reaction to the positive job openings report.
- The euro also demonstrated fluctuations, with a decrease of 0.06% to $1.178150 following an initial increase of 0.05% earlier in the day.
- The dollar index, which assesses the dollar against various currencies such as the yen and euro, experienced an increase of 0.09% to 96.84 after previously dropping to 96.71.
