Dollar rises in anticipation for Powell’s speech

The Dollar rose earlier on Wednesday in Asia on the back of U.S. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech that would be delivered later in the day.

The U.S. Dollar Index dipped by 0.04% to 99.998 at 11:40 AM ET (4:40 AM GMT).

Powell might turn away from calls for negative rates even after U.S. President Donald Trump placed pressure on the topic on Tuesday. This comes as a rising concern as U.S. money markets had based pricing on the chance of negative rates last week.

The dollar rose against the Japanese Yen by 0.07% to ¥107.21.

Down under, the Australian Dollar saw losses on Tuesday but later gained 0.07% to $0.6474 after a newspaper reported that China had banned meat imports from Australia. The gains came after Australia’s trade minister toned the news down as a technical issue.

Meanwhile, The New Zealand Dollar slipped by 1% to $0.6015.

The British Pound Sterling rose by 0.09% to $1.2271, while the Chinese Yuan lost 0.13% to ¥7.0906 per Dollar.