LONDON: The dollar held near the
day's lows against a trade-weighted basket of its rivals on Friday and is set
for its biggest weekly loss in more than a month as investors locked in gains awaiting
progress of a landmark U.S. tax bill.
Congressional Republicans took
important steps toward the biggest U.S. tax-code overhaul since the 1980s, with
the House of Representatives approving a broad package of tax cuts, and a
Senate panel advancing its own version of the legislation sought by senior
lawmakers and President Donald Trump.
"We are seeing a very choppy
ending to the week on the dollar with market liquidity thinning out and the key
to more dollar upside lies in the progress of the U.S. tax bill," said
Alvin Tan, an FX strategist at Societe Generale in London.
The euro held around the $1.18
line against the dollar and held just below a one-month high of $1.1862 tested
on Wednesday.
Against a broad trade-weighted
basket of its rivals, the dollar was down 0.3 percent to 93.508 and was set for
a second consecutive week of losses.
The greenback also came under
pressure after a Wall Street Journal report that investigators probing possible
Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election had subpoenaed President Donald
Trump's election campaign for documents.
With very little in the way of
top tier data out of U.S. in the coming days, investors will be focused on the
Fed minutes, according to an ING report. Market action is likely to be muted
next week due to Thanksgiving holiday.
Also weighing on the dollar was a
return in risk appetite in the second half of the week with a broad swathe of
emerging market currencies led by the Indian rupee which is up nearly half a
percent.
Peter Fitzgerald, global head of
multi-assets at Aviva Investors, who oversees 132 billion pounds ($174.20
billion) in assets, told the Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit this week
that going long large-cap emerging equities and short on large-cap developed
market stocks had done reasonably well in 2017, and would continue to make
money next year.
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