FX Roundup: Dollar extends gains against major crosses

The dollar surged against a basket of global currencies on Monday, with the likelihood of an interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve as early as December being priced in by Asian and European traders.

At 1613 GMT, the dollar was up 0.19% against the yen exchanging at JPY123.04. In tandem, the pound and euro fell 0.41% and 0.39% to exchange at $1.5129 and $1.0604 respectively, with latter inching ever closer to dollar parity.

Completing a clean sweep of major crosses, the greenback also rose 0.27% against the Swiss franc exchanging at CHF1.0209, rising above parity in its favour during late European trading.

Kit Juckes, head of forex at Societe Generale, said, “With commodity prices and relative rates both supporting the dollar, the only barrier to further near-term gains is positioning with CFTC data showing dollar longs have been rebuilt in earnest in recent weeks.”

“Euro shorts however, are still a fair bit smaller than they were in the spring and a push through EUR/USD 1.06 could see a renewed acceleration to the downside, taking GBP/USD in its wake.”

The greenback also traded higher against commodities-linked currencies including the Norwegian Krone by 0.28% changing hands at NOK8.6653, accompanied by gains of 0.65%, 0.32% and 0.19% against the Chilean peso, Brazilian real and Canadian dollar, changing hands at CLP$715.11, BRL3.7176 and CAD$1.3371 respectively.

Finally, the Australian dollar also fell against its US counterpart by 0.75% changing hands at US$0.7185, while the New Zealand dollar shed 0.85% against the greenback changing hands at US$0.6508.