Category Archives: Dollar

What’s behind the record FTSE 100 high?

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Hopes of a UK interest rate cut and easing geopolitical tensions are not the only reasons for the intraday peak reached this morning

The UK stock market has hit an intraday record high, lifted by hopes of interest rate cuts and easing geopolitical tensions, after setting a new closing high on Monday. The FTSE 100 index touched 8,076 points at the opening bell on Tuesday, surpassing a previous high of 8,047 reached in February 2023. We explain what is behind the rising London market.

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Would Javier Milei’s dollar plan for Argentina be an economic experiment too far?

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President-elect’s idea is a gamble that is likely to crash an economy paying the price for mistakes of his predecessor

Javier Milei’s bigger-than-expected victory in the Argentinan presidential election suggests voters in South America’s second biggest country have willingly opted for shock treatment to sort out the country’s deep economic malaise.

It is perhaps not hard to see why 56% of the electorate backed the rightwing libertarian: Argentina may have the world’s best football team but its economy has performed disastrously in recent years. Inflation is running at 140% and a three-year drought has led to a sharp fall in agricultural production. Two out of five people live in poverty and the currency has lost 90% of its value in four years.

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Why is the euro doing so badly against the dollar?

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Analysis: Investors often turn to US currency in times of uncertainty and there are plenty of reasons for them to be jittery

It is two decades since the euro was last trading below $1.00 (£0.84) against the US dollar. Now the single currency is once again teetering on the brink of parity.

There are a host of reasons why, although the prompt for the most recent slide in the currency has been the fear Europe faces an energy crunch this winter.

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Russian central bank buys up roubles to avert stock market collapse

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Bank scrambles to prevent invasion of Ukraine sending Russia’s financial system into meltdown as currency hits all-time low

The Russian central bank has purchased millions of roubles to prevent the collapse of the Moscow stock exchange and prop up the currency after it plunged to an all-time low of 89.60 against the dollar.

In a scramble to prevent the invasion of Ukraine pushing Russia’s financial system into meltdown, officials in Moscow closed the stock exchange while the Bank of Russia mounted a rescue operation to put a floor under the skidding rouble.

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Sterling reaches $1.39 in best performance for three years

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FTSE 100 posts biggest daily gain for over a month as investors buoyed up by vaccine and US economy hopes

The pound has hit its highest level against the dollar for almost three years as global markets were buoyed up by hopes for a faster economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Sterling rose by 0.5% to hit a 33-month high against the dollar on Monday, trading above $1.39 on the global currency markets for the first time since 2018, while also rising to a nine-month high against the euro of almost €1.15.

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Bitcoin hits record high on 12th anniversary of its creation

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Cryptocurrency passes $30,000 as financial institutions express growing interest

Bitcoin has surged to a record high amid rising interest from investors and claims that the volatile cryptocurrency is on the way to becoming a mainstream payment method.

Having quadrupled in value during 2020, bitcoin began 2021 strongly by breaking through the $30,000 (£22,000) mark for the first time, less than three weeks after first trading above $20,000.

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Markets rally as investors brace for US election – business live

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Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Mohit Kumar of Jefferies reckons the battle for the Senate could be worth $2tn in potential stimulus measures:

In terms of market impact, a clear result should be positive for risk sentiment, irrespective of a Biden or Trump win.

From a fiscal stimulus perspective, as we have argued before, the Senate elections are as important, if not more, than a Presidential one. A ‘Blue Wave’ with Biden as the President and Democrats having control of both the House and the Senate would see a fiscal stimulus of over $3trn.

Related: The Senate races to watch on election night

This morning’s rally in Europe follows a strong day’s trading for shares in the Asia-Pacific region.

China’s CSI 300 index gained 1.2%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped by nearly 2%, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.9% after the RBA slashed interest rates to record lows.

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Is this the end of the road for dollar dominance?

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In the short term, probably not, but with China weaponising the yuan stern challenges lie ahead

The recent sharp depreciation of the US dollar has led to concerns that it may lose its role as the main global reserve currency. After all, in addition to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive monetary easing – which threatens to debase the world’s key fiat currency even further – gold prices and inflation expectations have also been rising.

But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the dollar’s early demise are greatly exaggerated. The greenback’s recent weakness is driven by shorter-term cyclical factors. In the long run, the situation is more complicated: the dollar has both strengths and weaknesses that may or may not undermine its global position over time.

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Forget doom-laden headlines, the dollar has not gone into terminal decline | Barry Eichengreen

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Too much is being read into the greenback’s recent weakening against the euro

The dollar is in freefall! The global greenback is doomed! screamed recent headlines. Actually, such sensational headlines are “too sensational”, to echo that noted authority on currencies, Miss Prism, in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

The dollar’s fall in July to a two-year low against the euro was the immediate impetus for these stories. In fact, the dollar’s recent slide is one in a series of readily explicable fluctuations. When the Covid-19 pandemic went global in March, the dollar strengthened on the back of safe-haven flows into US Treasuries, as it does at the start of every crisis. By May, the Federal Reserve, acting as global lender of last resort, had accommodated this mad scramble for dollars by pouring buckets of liquidity into financial markets and the greenback gave back its early gains.

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UK car sales slump as 2,000 workers lose their jobs in Covid-19 crisis – business live

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Live coverage as Aston Martin and car dealer Lookers announce costs savings plans

Young’s pub chain intends to open all of its 276 sites by the 3 August, and is hopeful the business can “bounce back” once its pubs are allowed to reopen, but expects trading to be “materially below average” for the rest of the year.

Another interesting detail from the SMMT data: Tesla’s Model 3 was the most popular car during May.

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More than 10m workers paid £21.8bn in UK government coronavirus support – business live

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Live coverage of business, economics and financial markets

In total the coronavirus government support for UK workers has come to £21.8bn, if you add together the money paid for furloughed employees and income support for self-employed workers.

More than 10m British workers have been given some form of income support, if furlough numbers are added to those who have claimed self-employed support*.

More struggles for the British property sector:


British Land, which owns shopping centres including Sheffield’s Meadowhall and Drake Circus in Plymouth, has written down the value of its retail portfolio by more than a quarter due to the impact of the coronavirus.

Related: Shopping centre owner British Land slashes value of retail portfolio

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