Around 8:40 p.m., the greenback was up 0.46% at 0.9959 euros for one dollar, or 1.0042 dollars for one euro.
The dollar approached parity with the euro on Friday, galvanized by the resolute statements of several members of the American central bank (Fed), which tempered hopes of seeing the institution ease off.
Around 6:40 p.m. GMT, the greenback was up 0.46% at 0.9959 euros for one dollar, or 1.0042 dollars for one euro. Earlier Friday, it had gone up to 1.0033 dollars, close to parity, already reached on July 12 for the first time in nearly 20 years.
“There are more signals suggesting that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will continue its aggressive tightening cycle,” commented Joe Manimbo of Convera in a note.
On Friday, the chairman of the Fed’s office in Richmond, Virginia, Thomas Barkin, said members of the Monetary Policy Committee, of which he is not currently a member, would do “whatever is necessary” to bring back the inflation around 2% (it currently stands at 8.5% over one year).
The day before, the president of the antenna of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, had already hammered that the Fed should bring down the inflation in an urgent way by raising its rates, to slow down the request.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, known for his tough stance, said he was in favor of another 0.75 percentage point hike in the key rate at the September meeting, as operators still favor the hypothesis of an increase of only half a point.
With this series of proactive statements, coupled with some good US macroeconomic indicators this week, “the market is pushed” to question its bet that the Fed will calm the game on monetary matters, according to Marc Chandler of Bannockburn Global Forex.
Illustrating the powerhouse status of the Fed, although the central bank of New Zealand and Norway each raised their key rates by half a point this week, the New Zealand dollar fell by almost 5 % once morest the dollar since last Friday, and the Norwegian krone by 2.4%.
Faced with a strong dollar, the euro and the pound sterling are running out of steam, prisoners of an energy crisis which threatens to degenerate and inflation which does not recede.
Friday, the GfK index which measures the morale of British consumers emerged, for August, at the lowest level since the start of the publication of this indicator, in 1974.
The pound fell as low as $1.1792, close to its July multi-year low of 1.1760.
Marc Chandler sees the dollar continuing its breakthrough until the symposium in Jackson Hole (Wyoming), which will bring together several central bankers and see Fed Chairman Jerome Powell give a speech next Friday.
