WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. dollar was weak against most of its peers on Monday, extending losses from the previous session.
The dollar, which lost significant ground on Friday, reacting to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's comments a day earlier, continued to exhibit weakness, weighed down by prospects for a long low-interest regime due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
After Powell's remarks about monetary policy and interest rates last week, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida said today that rates will not be hiked just becase the jobless rate is coming down.
Speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics this morning, Clarida said, 'A low unemployment rate by itself, in the absence of evidence that price inflation is running or is likely to run persistently above mandate-consistent levels or pressing financial stability concerns, will not, under our new framework, be a sufficient trigger for policy action.'
The dollar index, which settled notably lower at 92.37 on Friday, extended its slide today and dropped to a low of 91.99 before recovering some ground, rising to 92.18. However, it was still down more than 0.2% from previous close.
Against the Euro, the dollar weakened to $1.1940, giving up about 0.3%. Germany's consumer prices remained flat in August, preliminary data from Destatis revealed. The consumer price index was unchanged from last year, following a 0.1% drop in July. Economists had forecast consumer prices to climb 0.1%.
On a monthly basis, consumer prices fell 0.1%, which was slightly slower than the 0.2% drop economists' had forecast.
The Pound Sterling was stronger, fetching $1.3370 a unit, compared with $1.3352 on Friday.
The Yen was weaker by over 0.5% against the dollar at 105.91, losing ground from 105.37 a dollar late on Friday.
Against the Aussie, the dollar was down marginally at 0.7375.
Swiss franc was little changed at 0.9033 a dollar, while the Loonie was last seen at 1.3042 a dollar.
Switzerland's retail sales increased by a working-day adjusted 4.1% year-on-year in July, data from the Federal Statistical Office showed.
On a monthly basis, seasonally adjusted retail sales rose 0.7% in July. In nominal terms, retail sales rose 3.4% annually in July and increased 0.7% from a month ago.
In economic news from Canada, the value of building permits in Canada declined 3% from a month earlier to C$7.8 billion in July 2020, following a downwardly revised 5.7% rise in the prior month. The drop, however, was smaller than an expected 5.5% decline.
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