Investing.com - The U.S. dollar rose slightly on Wednesday as traders dialed back expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts after comments from Fed policymakers.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six major currencies, rose 0.1% to 95.713 by 10:39 AM ET (14:39 GMT).
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and St. Louis Fed President James Bullard downplayed the chances of a large rate cut in July in comments made on Tuesday. Powell said the central bank will be patient on its approach to rate cuts, while Bullard pointed to a smaller rate cut than the 50 basis points that some had hoped for.
The news helped lift the dollar from a three-month low, which it hit last week after the central bank opened up the door for rate cuts this year. However, it also elicited further criticism from President Donald Trump, who told Fox Television that Powell was doing "a bad job" in not cutting rates. Trump also renewed his criticism of the euro zone for a currency policy that he claimed was designed to "take advantage" of the U.S., a reference to ECB President Mario Draghi's comments last week on the likelihood of further stimulus in Europe soon.
"We should have Draghi instead of our Fed person, you know," Trump said.
Meanwhile the dollar rose against the safe-haven Japanese yen, with USD/JPY up 0.4% to 107.60, as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said a U.S.-China trade deal is "90% complete.” Separately, Trump told Fox that he is “very happy” with the current trade situation with China.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to meet Saturday on the sidelines of the G20 summit and traders are hoping the two will avoid escalating trade tensions.
Official U.S. comments contrasted with some voices out of China. Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, an English-language mouthpiece for Beijing, tweeted that "No Chinese official now speaks with such optimism. With dozens of hours left before Xi-Trump summit, Chinese state media has been keeping criticizing the U.S. harshly, a situation that never happened in the previous China-U.S, summits."
Elsewhere, the euro was flat, with EUR/USD up at 1.1367, while GBP/USD slipped 0.1% to 1.2686 and USD/CAD fell 0.2% to 1.3131.
Earlier, there had been little reaction to the day's big data release. Durable goods orders for May fell by 1.3%, well below expectations, although the news was leavened by the fact that core durable goods orders, which strips out the volatile transportation sector, rose 0.3%.