The prospect of further sharp rises in interest rates in the USA is driving the US currency higher. The dollar index climbed 0.6 percent to 108.16 points on Friday, its highest level in a month. The euro fell accordingly by 0.5 percent to $ 1.0039 and thus again approached parity. St. Louis Branch Fed chief James Bullard said Wall Street Journal, he favors a 0.75 percentage point hike in interest rates at the next Federal Reserve meeting in September. In the fight against escalating inflation, the US Federal Reserve raised the key interest rate sharply by 0.75 percentage points in July – as in June. It is now in a range of 2.25 to 2.50 percent. On the other hand, despite ECB Director Isabel Schnabel’s assurances that she will continue to raise interest rates, the euro has been left behind. The fact that it is currently being discussed whether the ECB will raise its key interest rate by 25 or 50 basis points in September only shows how far the ECB is lagging behind the Fed, Commerzbank analyst Esther Reichelt wrote in a comment. “In view of the increasingly cloudy growth outlook, this is increasingly threatening to become a problem for the euro.”
The prospect of continued tight monetary policy in the USA is increasingly weighing on digital currencies such as Bitcoin. The price of the oldest crypto asset fell to its lowest level since late July on Friday. The low reached $21,268 on the Bitstamp trading platform.
Oil prices continued to rise on the commodity market. The US light oil of the WTI variety rose 1.6 percent, the European variety Brent was listed one percent higher at $ 97.66 per barrel. Gold suffered from the firmer dollar and cost $ 1745 per troy ounce in the evening.