RTTN:Dollar Hits Fresh 11-Month High Versus Yen Ahead Of Fed
(RTTNews) - The dollar rose to its highest in almost a year versus the yen and held recent gains against the euro on Tuesday, as the Federal Reserve prepared to deliver its latest announcement on interest rates.
Economists see the Fed keeping the benchmark rate at effectively zero, and signal that economic conditions will likely warrant exceptionally low interest rates through most of 2014.
Eurozone finance ministers late Monday gave their final nod to a second bailout package for Greece after the country completed a debt swap deal with its private creditors last week.
At the same time, the ministers said Spain may need larger consolidation effort to attain the deficit reduction target in 2013.
Because of concerns about Spain, there was little reaction to news that Germany's economic sentiment improved for the fourth straight month in March.
The Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) said its indicator of economic sentiment rose by 16.9 points to a level of 22.3 in March, the highest level since June 2010.
The dollar improved to $1.31 versus the euro, up a bit from last night. With the advance the dollar was near last week's monthly peak of $1.3078.
Choppy dealing left the dollar near yesterday's 7-week high of $1.56 versus the sterling.
The buck jumped to Y82.70 versus the yen, its highest since April 2011.
On the economic front from the U.S., the Commerce Department is set to release the retail sales report for February at 8:30 am ET. Economists estimate a 1.2 percent increase in retail sales and a 0.8 percent increase in retail sales that exclude autos.
In January, retail sales rose a less than expected 0.4 percent and sales, excluding autos, were up 0.7 percent.
The Federal Open Market Committee is scheduled to begin a 1-day meeting to discuss the near term direction of monetary policy. The monetary policy-setting arm of the Federal Reserve is set to release a post-meeting policy statement at 2:15 pm ET.
At the same time, the improvement seen in labor markets may prevent the central bank from making any commitment on further monetary policy easing.
