By Sarupya Ganguly
BENGALURU (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar will hold on to its recent strength over coming months on robust domestic economic data and continued scaling back of bets for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, a Reuters poll found.
Some analysts have attributed the dollar’s 4% October rally to speculation about the likely result of the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election. Others say the move is primarily due to resilient economic activity in the United States, particularly strong consumer spending and labor data.
The latest opinion polls show a near-deadlock between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump in the final stretch of a tightly-fought presidential contest.
Meanwhile, persistent U.S. economic outperformance has pushed financial markets to price in a higher year-end Fed funds rate than thought even a month ago. A separate Reuters survey of economists predicts two more quarter-point reductions this year.
Based on interest rate differentials, the dollar’s recent momentum seems unlikely to fade quickly anytime soon. Fed peers, such as the European Central Bank, appear more likely to be aggressive in the near-term with rate reductions.
“In the U.S., we started getting better economic data, so we started pricing in a more hawkish Fed relative to what we had been and in Europe we started getting weaker data and so we started pricing in a more dovish ECB,” said Dan Tobon, head of G10 FX strategy at Citi.
“We’re basically just looking for the dollar to rally into the election, reverse that slightly and then chop around sideways like it’s been doing now.”
The euro will trade around its current $1.09 level by the end of November before edging up about 1% in three months to $1.10, according to median forecasts from over 70 forex strategists polled by Reuters from Oct. 28-31.
Yet, an overwhelming 90% majority of respondents, 28 of 31, to an additional question predicted better dollar performance in the immediate aftermath of a Trump victory. The currency is forecast to gain an additional 1.5% under that scenario and lose 1% if Harris wins, according to median responses.
“We’re seeing risks to the dollar as asymmetric to the upside in case of a Trump victory and a bit more status quo, slightly maybe to the downside, in a Harris victory,” said Alex Cohen, FX strategist at Bank of America.
“That’s mainly due to trade and tariff policy in a Trump administration that could … have a disproportionate impact on the dollar, pushing it higher both from expected inflation as well as from a trade perspective.”
While both Trump and Harris have proposed policies that could reignite price pressures, Trump’s policies would be more inflationary of the two, according to 39 of 42 economists in a separate Reuters survey.
Yet, the euro was forecast to rise to $1.11 by the end of April and then to $1.12 in a year, poll medians showed.
“Our medium-term view of the dollar is it should ultimately trade negative in a soft landing environment. But given how strong U.S. data has been recently, there are definite additional upside risks to that forecast,” BofA’s Cohen added.