The U.S dollar, on Thursday, December 8, strengthened against a basket of tis main rivals, with the ICE U.S. Dollar index DXY, +0.83% rising 0.4% to 100.70.
The dollar USDJPY, +0.39% appreciated by 0.6% to ¥114.33, compared with ¥113.65 late Wednesday, December 7.
Meanwhile the euro is the most heavily weighted constituent of the ICE index. it slid from a sharp gain to a steep fall, on Thursday, after the European Central Bank,ECB, said it would begin tapering its massive monthly bond-buying program in April. Moments after the announcement, the shared currency EURUSD, -1.2367% rose 0.7%.
Since the election last month, a broad index for the dollar has risen 4 percent. This move, however, masks even sharper increases against a number of currencies.
The dollar has gained 10 percent against the Mexican peso and 8 percent against the Japanese yen.
Against the Chinese yuan, the move has been less pronounced — just 1.5 percent. But Mr. Trump’s combative language toward China has ignited concerns in Beijing that local savers will try to send more of their deposits abroad, putting more downward pressure on the yuan.
When the Turkish lira fell to its lowest level in decades against the dollar last week, the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, took the unusual step of urging Turks to sell the dollars that they had been hoarding and buy their local currency.
With its high levels of debt in dollars and reliance on volatile capital flows for its financing needs, Turkey, more than most of its peers, has been vulnerable to the episodic fits of the emerging markets contagion that have plagued the global economy in recent decades.
