By Lisa Twaronite, MarketWatch
TOKYO (MarketWatch) — The dollar continued to rise Thursday, taking its cue from mostly weaker equity markets after U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted a slower pace of U.S. growth.
The dollar index DXY +0.20% , which measures the performance of the U.S. unit against a basket of six other major currencies, rose to 75.091 from 74.791 in late North American trading Wednesday.
The greenback got a lift from safe-haven seekers on Wednesday, after Bernanke stressed the slow pace of U.S. recovery as well as euro-zone debt concerns, prompting a U.S. stock-market slide that carried over into most Asian markets. Read more on Bernanke.
“The major concern for markets remains the depth and length of the current ‘soft patch.’” said Mitul Kotecha, head of Global FX Strategy at Credit Agricole.
“The Fed believes it will be temporary and we concur, but clearly the slide in equity markets over recent weeks, suggests that there has been a divergence between stock market expectations and reality,” he said in a note to clients Thursday.
Also Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee voted to keep its targeted Fed funds rate between 0% and 0.25% by unanimous vote, and confirmed it would hold its record $2.8 trillion balance sheet steady by reinvesting the securities that mature. But Bernanke didn’t signal that any further easing was on the near-term horizon, which gave the dollar a lift.
The euro EURUSD -0.57% was trading at $1.4297, down from $1.4360 late Wednesday. See real-time currency quotes and tools.
Also helping the dollar versus the yen, U.S. Treasury yields rose after Bernanke’s comments, which makes dollar-denominated Treasurys more attractive than Japanese government bonds, or JGBs. Read more on Treasury yields.
Against the Japanese yen, the dollar USDJPY +0.30% rose to ¥80.44, ¥80.33.
The Australian dollar AUDUSD -0.41% fell to $1.0551 from $1.0574 late Wednesday and the British pound GBPUSD -0.29% changed hands at $1.6046, down from $1.6101.
Lisa Twaronite is MarketWatch's Tokyo bureau chief.
