Asian session review: the dollar consolidated against the major currencies

During today's Asian trading, the US dollar was trading steadily against major currencies, while investors continued to analyze the comments of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Speaking at the US Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, he made it clear that the Federal Reserve does not intend to rush to curtail incentives and still considers the increase in inflationary pressure in the country temporary.

The acceleration of inflation, according to him, is concentrated in a limited range of sectors, including cars, as well as air transportation. The dynamics of prices in the United States is "unique", and the leadership of the Federal Reserve is closely monitoring it to understand whether its opinion about a temporary acceleration of inflation is correct, or inflationary pressure will persist for an extended period, Powell said.

The yen fell slightly. Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan does not expect that inflation in Japan will rise to its 2% target in the next three years. According to the new forecast of the Bank of Japan, inflation will be 0.6% in the current fiscal year and will increase to 0.9% and 1%, respectively, in the next two financial years. Earlier, the regulator predicted inflation of 0.1% for 2021, 0.8% for 2022 and 1% for 2023. The Bank of Japan kept the key parameters of monetary policy unchanged following the results of the two-day meeting that ended on Friday. The short-term interest rate on deposits of commercial banks in the Central Bank is left at the level of -0.1% per annum, the target yield of ten-year government bonds is about zero.

The ICE index, which tracks the dynamics of the dollar against six currencies (euro, swiss franc, yen, canadian dollar, pound sterling and swedish krona), fell by 0.01%.