Asian session review: the US dollar declined slightly against most currencies

During today's Asian trading, the US dollar consolidated against the euro and the pound, but declined slightly against the japanese yen.

Investors are waiting for the speech of the chairman of the US Federal Reserve System Jerome Powell at the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. The day before, Powell presented a semi-annual report on the state of the US economy to the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.

US inflation has picked up markedly and is likely to remain high in the coming months before easing, according to Powell's semi-annual report. The difficulties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and the limited supply of a number of goods have led to a rapid increase in prices for some types of products and services, he noted. Also, the reason for strong inflation is the low base for comparison due to the fall in prices last year. The head of the Fed said that the Central Bank is not close to making changes in monetary policy.

The yuan rose against the US dollar on the background of data on China. China's GDP grew by 7.9% in the second quarter compared to the same period last year. The pace of recovery slowed compared to a record jump of 18.3% in the first quarter. However, this is due to the effect of a low comparison base, since in January-March 2020, the economy fell by 6.8% due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and later the situation began to gradually improve. Analysts on average predicted an increase of 8.1% in April-June. In the second quarter, the economy expanded by 1.3% compared to the previous three months. In the first quarter, GDP growth was 0.6%.

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 0.03%.