The dollar firmed in the latest market snapshot as the Federal Reserve’s meeting opened. The site market tables updated October 27 at 06:00 ET put the dollar index at 102.23, up 0.27 percent on the day and 0.49 percent on the week, with the euro down 0.66 percent to 1.1143 dollars and sterling down 0.45 percent to 1.3318 dollars.
The yen was the softest major. The dollar rose 0.58 percent against it to 157.74 yen, even though the pair is down 0.49 percent on the week, leaving the yen’s direction set less by Tokyo than by whether Wednesday’s Federal Reserve statement keeps the December hike pricing, about 75 percent for a 25 basis point move on prediction markets, intact. The Swiss franc also eased, with the dollar up 0.55 percent to 0.8284 francs, while the Canadian dollar was almost unchanged at 1.4019 per United States dollar and the Australian dollar eased 0.03 percent to 0.7028.
The offshore yuan moved the other way, with the dollar down 0.33 percent to 6.6559 yuan, a firmer Chinese currency on a morning when China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported industrial profits up 15.5 percent in the first nine months of the year. The combination, a firm dollar against Europe and Japan and a softer one against China, matches a week in which the rates story is American policy and the growth story, for once, is Chinese industry.