After months of steady ascent, the dollar has been giving back gains in recent months. In the year to the end of July, the US currency climbed 5 per cent against a broad basket of peers tracked by the Federal Reserve. It then softened, largely thanks to increased expectations for lower interest rates that were confirmed with a half percentage point cut by the Fed in September. That made the dollar’s prospects relatively less attractive. 

Today, though, such expectations are not likely to prove sufficient to keep the dollar on a downward trend, particularly after further evidence of strong job creation in the US last week.

After all, markets are supposed to price in publicly known information. That means the dollar’s current valuation already reflects expectations of another 1.5 percentage cut in the benchmark Fed fund interest rate between November and the end of 2025. Further rate cuts would require additional economic softening that while certainly possible, feels a bit further away after the latest, robust US jobs data. Ten-year Treasury bond yields have already been boosted by this, crossing the key 4 per cent mark.