US dollar firms to the best levels of the day

The US dollar has further strengthened as stocks continued to sag.

The Russell 2000 is at the lows of the day, down 1% while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are modestly above the lows and under some pressure.

There isn’t a clear catalyst for the dollar strength with yields in the middle of today’s session. Today’s weekly US jobless claims were high, which should weaken the US dollar, but they were likely skewed higher by the Hurricane in Texas and should reverse next week.

There could be some dollar-buying pressure coming through the euro. Lagarde highlighted downside risks to growth in the eurozone and that’s weighed somewhat on the euro today.

The move is more broad-based though with commodity currencies in particular under pressure.

There are a chorus of reports highlighting the President Biden is being pressured to drop his re-election campaign and that could be having an effect as well.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.