NEW YORK (Reuters) – The dollar continued to rise on Tuesday after hawkish comments from a Federal Reserve spokesman, while stocks closed higher led by Amazon.com even as restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19 sparked fears of a second wave of lockdowns.
Crude oil prices rose after sharp losses on Monday, while stocks in Europe and Wall Street offset losses elsewhere.dollar index = USD It was the strongest two-day move since April.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told Britons to return to work from home and imposed new restrictions on pubs, bars and restaurants, which he said could be curtailed in the absence of some form of vaccine. Lasting up to six months, the pound took a hit as a result.
“As we all know, the virus doesn’t live in a vacuum, and what you see in one country affects other places. Economically, it could have an impact,” said Minh Trang, senior foreign exchange trader at Silicon Valley Bank.
The dollar also got a boost after Chicago Fed President Charles Evans raised the prospect of rate hikes.
“All we’ve heard from the Fed over the last few months is that we’re not going to raise rates any time in the foreseeable future. Then Evans stepped in and challenged that narrative, so the market was caught off guard,” said a macro strategist at Wells Fargo Securities in New York. Eric Nelson said.
dollar index = USD The euro rose 0.403% Euro = It fell 0.5 percent to $1.171.
JPY Yen = It was down 0.29% against the dollar at $104.97, while the pound was down 0.29% against the greenback GBP = It was last traded at $1.2738, down 0.59% on the day.
5.7% lift from Amazon amazon The size was enough to lift Wall Street even as the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 reached 200,000 and the chances of more stimulus to help the coronavirus-hit economy dwindled.
Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI The S&P 500 rose 140.48 points, or 0.52%, to 27,288.18 .SPX The Nasdaq Composite rose 34.51 points, or 1.05%, to 3,315.57 .IXIC It gained 184.84 points, or 1.71%, to 10,963.64.
Pan-European STOXX 600 Index .Stoke MSCI’s index of stocks across the globe rose 0.20% .MIWD00000PUS Up 0.43%.
Emerging market stocks fell 0.69%. MSCI’s broadest Asia-Pacific stock index outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS It closed down 1.01%.
U.S. Treasury yields edged lower for most of the session, but the benchmark 10-year yield ended little changed as stocks rallied US10YT=RR It was last yielding 0.6708%, up from 0.671% late on Monday.
Oil prices rose after analysts saw reimposed blockade restrictions in Europe having a limited impact on fuel demand, partially reversing a sharp drop in prices the previous day.
US crude oil CLc1 Brent crude oil was last up 0.61% at $39.60 a barrel LCOc1 It was at $41.74, up 0.72% on the day.
spot gold XAU = It fell 0.6 percent to $1,901.41 an ounce.
Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Sinéad Carew, Laura Sanicola, Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, Herb Lash and Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Chris Rees and Jonathan Otis
