Asian session review: the dollar declined against most major currencies

During today's Asian trading, the US dollar declined moderately against the euro and the yen.

The Finance Committee of the US Senate on Friday unanimously supported the candidacy of the former head of the Federal Reserve System Janet Yellen for the post of Treasury Secretary. Earlier, Yellen called on lawmakers to "act on a large scale" to prevent a prolonged economic downturn, and dismissed concerns about the growing volume of the US national debt.

The pound rose against the dollar. The proportion of people vaccinated against coronavirus in the UK is about five times higher than in the EU, causing the pound to jump to an eight-month high against the euro last week.

According to the investment director of Aberdeen Standard Investments, James Etey, for this reason, the pound will continue to overtake the euro. He predicts that the pound will gain about 20% against the single European currency in the coming years and reach the level at which it was before the Brexit referendum in 2016.

Support for the pound was also provided by the Bank of England, whose head Andrew Bailey recently signaled that, although the regulator is considering the possibility of negative interest rates, it has not yet begun to discuss their introduction.

The Australian dollar rose 0.26% against the US dollar after the Australian medical regulator approved the use of a coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech.

The ICE index, which tracks the dollar's performance against six currencies (euro, swiss franc, yen, canadian dollar, pound sterling and swedish krona), fell 0.14%.