European session review: USD weakens, weighed down by dovish Fed minutes

USD weakened against most of its major counterparts in the European session on Thursday, as yields on longer-term U.S. Treasuries slipped as investors continued to digest the dovish Fed minutes, which were released on Wednesday.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields fell by 3 basis points to 1.647% early Thursday, reaching their two-week lows, after the minutes from the Federal Reserve's March policy meeting showed that the Fed officials remained cautious about the risks of the pandemic and committed to keeping the current accommodative monetary policy until economic recovery is more secure. 

“Participants agreed that the economy remained far from the Committee's longer-run goals and that the path ahead remained highly uncertain, with the pandemic continuing to pose considerable risks to the outlook,” the FOMC minutes from the March 16-17 meeting said. "All members agreed to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent, and they expected that it would be appropriate to maintain this target range until labor market conditions had reached levels consistent with the Committee's assessments of maximum employment and inflation had risen to 2 percent and was on track to moderately exceed 2 percent for some time. In addition, members agreed that it would be appropriate for the Federal Reserve to continue to increase its holdings of Treasury securities by at least $80 billion per month and agency mortgage-backed securities by at least $40 billion per month until substantial further progress had been made toward the Committee's maximum-employment and price-stability goals."

It should be noted, however, that several policymakers suggested that interest rates might need to increase sooner than anticipated, but market participants ignored this message. 

Investors are now awaiting the speech of the Fed's Chair Jerome Powell, who is to participate in a virtual IMF's conference on the global economy today at 16:00 GMT.