The dollar continued its decline against its main rivals for two to five days in a row. The dollar index, which measures the strength of the dollar against a basket of currencies, has also continued its decline for the fourth consecutive day, recording its worst daily performance over the last three weeks, to approach an important support at 88.36.
The dollar rose briefly in yesterday's trading following better-than-expected inflation data in January, boosting expectations that the Fed will accelerate its rate hike this year. But with concerns about a double deficit from trade and budget growing amid government spending and tax cuts for large firms, the US dollar fell at the beginning of the trading day to hit a 15-month low against the Japanese yen near the 106 levels.
On the other side, the euro returned to the 1.25 levels against the US dollar for the first time in the last two weeks.
Also, the Australian dollar rose to a two-week high against the US dollar at 0.7965, following better-than-expected Australian employment data. The Australian economy added 16K jobs in January, while the previous month's reading was revised to 33.5K. Unemployment fell to 5.5%.
Oil prices rose about 1% at the beginning of trading today, in light of the weakness of the US dollar and Saudi Arabia's comments that it would rather see an undersupplied market than to end the OPEC agreement with Russia to reduce production. US crude hit its highest level since Friday at $ 61.40 a barrel, while Brent crude rose to $ 65.12 a barrel.
