NEW YORK (Reuters) -The U.S. dollar rose against major currencies including the euro and the Swiss franc on Thursday as currency markets largely shrugged off President Donald Trump’s latest tariff missives, except in Brazil where a threatened 50% levy sent the real sliding.
Investors were hungry for riskier assets, with the most damaging tariff scenarios looking increasingly unlikely.
That has helped Nvidia to become the first stock ever with a $4 trillion valuation, and lifted cryptocurrency bitcoin to an all-time peak above $113,000.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields edged higher after data showed that jobless claims unexpectedly fell last week.
The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes rose 1 basis points to 4.352%.
Optimism was also buoyed by minutes of the Federal Reserve’s last meeting, with most policymakers of the opinion that interest rate cuts would be appropriate later this year.
Juan Perez, director of trading at Monex USA in Washington, said the U.S.
dollar is partly benefitting from realization that notwithstanding the volatility from tariffs, the U.S. economy is still a linchpin in the global trading system.
” What should you do when the U.S.
is acting up? Well, it is still to hold on to the U.S. dollar. In a weird way this whole tariff talk and the suddenness of it, it just demonstrates the powerful idea of leverage,” Perez said.
The dollar strengthened 0.37% to 0.797 against the Swiss franc, on track for gains after two consecutive sessions of losses.
It was flat at 146.235 against the Japanese yen.
The euro down 0.23% at $1.1692 and was set for two straight sessions of losses against the greenback.
The dollar index, which measures the currency against six major peers, was up 0.27% at 97.638, poised for gains after losing ground in the previous session.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he wanted to find a diplomatic solution to Trump’s threat of 50% tariffs on Brazilian exports, but vowed to reciprocate like-for-like if they take effect on August 1.
Brazil had originally been slated for just the baseline 10% levy, but Trump cited not just trade practices but the treatment of its former president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro, who was friendly with Trump when they were both in office, is on trial on charges of plotting a coup to stop current President Lula da Silva from taking office in January 2023.
The real dropped as much as 2.8% for the first time since June 6.
It was last down 0.56% to 5.5433 per dollar.
With the exception of Brazil, Trump’s latest batch of letters to trade partners contained tariff rates close to those already proposed in his original “Liberation Day” announcement on April 2, as was the case with other letters this week.
Bitcoin rallied to another all-time high helped by rising demand from institutional investors as well as Trump’s crypto-friendly policies.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency BTC= rose to a fresh record high of $113,820.49 on the session.
It is now up about 21% this year.
(Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York; Additional reporting by Kevin Buckland in Tokyo. Editing by Jamie Freed, Mark Potter, Andrew Heavens and Chizu Nomiyama )
