The New York Times (Reuters)As investors awaited a wave of policy announcements from global central banks, the dollar was slightly weaker Thursday in a bumpy session following remarks made by U.S. President Donald Trump that called for lower interest rates without offering any clarification on tariffs.

Due in large part to Monday's steep decline as widely anticipated tariff announcements from Trump following his inauguration did not come to pass, the dollar is down more than 1% for the week. Since then, there has been very little movement in the dollar.

In a speech to international corporate and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, Trump called for a global reduction in interest rates, which caused the dollar to fluctuate between gains and losses during the day. Additionally, he cautioned that if they manufacture their goods outside of the United States, they will be subject to tariffs.

Trump has made repeated references to tariffs, but he has once again refused to provide details about the charges he plans to impose.

David Eng, an investment adviser with Vancouver's Sonora Wealth Group, stated, "Until we have a definitive answer, we'll continue to see a little more volatility because we don't have any truly certain information to go off of."

"It seems like the markets are more concerned about rate cuts and any kind of greater indicator that there'll be more rate cuts."

Over the coming week, investors will be watching a number of policy decisions from central banks around the world. The Bank of Japan is likely to raise interest rates after a two-day meeting on Friday.

The European Central Bank (ECB) and the U.S. Federal Reserve are expected to make rate decisions on Thursday and Wednesday of next week, respectively.


With previous remarks from the central bank's policymakers suggesting a rate drop was inevitable, markets are pricing in a roughly 96% chance that the ECB would lower rates at its meeting.

The euro was up 0.14% at $1.0422, while the dollar index, which compares the US dollar to a basket of currencies that includes the yen and the euro, down 0.19% to 108.06.

Trump took office with a series of executive orders but no tariffs, and the dollar fell 1.2% on Monday, its biggest one-day decline since November 2023.

A strong U.S. economy and prospects of extensive U.S. tariffs, which could affect other nations' currencies, caused the dollar to rise to a more than two-year high of 110.17 on January 13.

According to data released on Thursday, the number of new applications for unemployment insurance in the United States increased slightly last week, indicating that strong job creation most certainly persisted in January.

After stating that Mexico and Canada would be subject to levies of about 25% by that date, Trump announced this week that his government was considering enacting a 10% duty on goods imported from China on February 1. In addition, he made a vague promise to impose charges on imports from Europe.

Many market investors think that April 1 will be a crucial date for the announcement of tariff proposals, therefore Trump signed a trade memo on Monday directing government agencies to examine a variety of trade concerns by that date.

At $1.2354, sterling gained 0.31%. At 20.329, the Mexican peso gained 0.92% against the US dollar.


The value of the Canadian dollar increased by 0.16% to C$1.435. Following inflation data earlier this week that fell short of its goal rate of 2%, the Canadian central bank is overwhelmingly expected to lower rates at its policy meeting next week.

At 155.99, the Japanese yen strengthened 0.33% vs the US dollar. In comparison to the offshore Chinese yuan, the dollar increased by 0.06% to 7.282.

Plans to convert hundreds of billions of yuan in investments from state-owned insurers into shares were revealed by China on Thursday.