Ella 
The U.S. dollar continued to weaken against its rivals in early trade on Thursday after suffering huge losses against its rivals following Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting. The Swiss National Bank (SNB), the Bank of England (BOE) and the European Central Bank (ECB) will announce monetary policy decisions on Thursday. Later, the U.S. will release weekly jobless claims and retail sales data for November. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde will also hold a press conference to speak on the policy outlook and answer questions.
The Federal Reserve decided to keep policy rates unchanged at 5.25%-5.5% after its last policy meeting of the year, as expected. The revised Summary of Economic Forecasts showed officials’ median forecast for policy rates at the end of 2024 is 4.6%, implying a total rate cut of 75 basis points next year. At a press conference after the meeting, Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged that policymakers were thinking and discussing when it would be appropriate to start cutting interest rates. “We are very focused on not making the mistake of keeping interest rates too high for too long,” Powell added.
These dovish comments coupled with the dovish dot plot triggered a sharp decline in U.S. yields. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell more than 4% on Wednesday and continued lower in early trade on Thursday, putting additional pressure on the dollar. As of press time, the 10-year U.S. yield was at its lowest level since early August, below 4%; the U.S. dollar index fell nearly 1% on Wednesday to 102.60 points, or 0.3%.
