The US Dollar Index (DXY) held just above 99.00 on Thursday, unchanged and confined to a range of under a fifth of a point. It remains about 2.6% below the June peak just under 102.00, while trading beneath a 50-day Exponential Moving Average near 100.00 and a flat 200-day near 99.75. Three Jackson Hole remarks hit before the New York open, including two hawkish entries, yet the basket did not respond. Attention turns to Friday’s 14:00 GMT Fed Chair keynote, delivered from prepared text with no questions, alongside data released at the same minute.
Dollar Performance Diverges From Policy Signals
Price action has diverged from policy optics. After the July 29 decision—five straight holds, decided 9–3 with first dissents calling for an immediate quarter-point move—DXY slid about 1.7 points from just under 101.50 to around 99.75 and has not retraced. Following August 19, when the Treasury doubled long-end buyback operations, the 30-year yield fell by more than nine basis points and DXY broke to just above 98.50. Real yields dominate the long-end rise: of 67 basis points added by the 30-year from late February to mid-August, 63 were real and four breakeven; June foreign Treasury holdings fell $72.1bn, with Japan down $26.4bn and China $25.9bn.
Key Influences And Upcoming Data Releases
The euro is close to 58% of DXY; the Euro area composite PMI was 52.1 in August and the ECB deposit rate is 2.25%. The yen is close to 14% and swaps imply about an 80% chance of a BoJ increase on 18 September. Friday also brings the benchmark revision, after prior rounds cut payrolls by 818K and 911K, plus Chicago PMI at 13:45 GMT (57 consensus vs 57.6 prior) and final Michigan at 14:00 (sentiment 51, expectations 50.6). Web-sourced pricing puts a September hike near one chance in three.
