Dollar Softens as Traders Doubt Further Fed Rate Rises

The dollar is not as strong as before because traders are not sure if the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates. Some data about jobs in the U.S. shows that things might be slowing down, which makes people think that the Fed might stop raising rates.

Even though the dollar went down a little bit to 104.18 against other currencies, it’s still close to its highest point in two months, which was 104.44 on August 25. In August, the dollar went up by 1.7%, and that stopped it from going down for two months in a row.

On Monday, U.S. markets are not open, so not many people are trading. People are not making big bets because they’re not sure what will happen.

Last Friday, we learned that more jobs were created in the U.S. in August, but the unemployment rate went up to 3.8%, and people’s wages didn’t go up as much as before. Also, we found out that in June and July, there were 110,000 fewer jobs than we thought.

Some experts say that the U.S. economy is like Goldilocks. It’s not getting too hot or too cold. They think things are slowing down just a little bit, but it’s not a big problem.

But some experts at Citi, a big bank, think the economy might slow down more and that interest rates will go up because prices and wages are still going up. They think this might cause a bigger economic slowdown.

Traders are worried that we might get bad news about the U.S. economy, which could make the dollar weaker. But things are not getting better in Europe and China either, so that’s not helping the dollar get stronger.

This week, a lot of people will be listening to what some important people from the Federal Reserve say. They want to know what the Fed might do at their meeting on September 19-20. Right now, most people think the Fed will not raise interest rates this month and might not raise them again this year.

The Japanese yen got a little stronger against the dollar, and the euro and British pound got a bit stronger too. The Australian dollar went up because the Reserve Bank of Australia is not going to change interest rates. In China, they did some things to help the property market, and that helped the Australian and New Zealand dollars. The Canadian dollar went up a little because the Bank of Canada is not going to change interest rates.

Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are cryptocurrencies, went up a little too.