According to Reuters, the US dollar held its overall gains on Friday (March 3), as the risk of U.S. interest rate hikes suppressed sovereign bonds and commodities, and even suppressed the rise in U.S. stocks, as the reality of rising borrowing costs began to be understood.
Asian stock markets generally fell, with MSCI's broadest Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) index falling 0.9%, the largest single-day drop since the year.
Australian stock market fell 0.8%, Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.5%, and Nikkei fell only 0.1%, as the weaker yen restricted the stock market decline.
Several Fed officials have made speeches to support the rate hike, so that the implicit probability of rate hikes this month soared from only 30% at the beginning of this week to 74%. Both officials, Yellen and Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, will speak later on Friday, and are expected to hold the same argument.
"The US dollar is sought after in full swing, as March rate hikes have become an important consideration," said Sean Callow, senior foreign exchange strategist at Westpac.
"This is done by Fed officials saying a lot of comments, but the market finally believes that 'very soon' is less than two weeks away, and maybe three interest rates this year meant that it would rise three times this year."
This is enough to make the US stock market pause the rise, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.53%, the S&P 500 index fell 0.59%, and the Nasdaq (Nasdaq ) index fell 0.73%.
Caterpillar fell 4.3% to $94.36, bringing the biggest drag on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is the largest decline in the S&P 500 index. It is reported that U.S. federal law enforcement agencies have searched several Caterpillar facilities in Illinois .
The Fed's likely interest rate hike on March 15 has led to the two-year U.S. bond yield breaking through the recent range, reaching its highest level since mid-2009.
As the European Central Bank still suppresses the short-term euro zone interest rate, the spread of the two-year government bonds has widened to 214 basis points, the widest since the beginning of 2000, with 183 basis points in January.
This has caused the EUR/USD to fall to 1.0510, and is expected to test the main support at the February low of 1.0492. The US dollar/Japanese yen held 114.28 and looked at the recent high of 114.95. The US dollar index was 102.070, the highest since January 11.
USD strong is not good news for commodities denominated in USD, and copper has been hit from gold maturity.
gold price fell to $1,231.82 per ounce, marking its biggest single-day drop since December last year on Thursday.
Russia's production cuts stagnated in February, showing that the degree of compliance with international production cuts to curb oversupply of oil has been weakened, causing oil prices to be hit again.
Early on Friday, U.S. crude oil futures rose $0.15 to $52.76 per barrel, down more than 2% from Thursday's price; Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 rose slightly to $0.14 to $55.21 per barrel.
WeChat public account: cngold-com-cn (long press and copy), or search [China Gold Network] to get more free information to push in real time!
WeChat public account: shangcaijing (long press to copy) to make financial knowledge more informative, or search [Shangcaijing Encyclopedia]
