{
  "id": 12762048,
  "title": "Dollar edges back from 18-month high after FOMC minutes",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/08/dollar-edges-back-from-18-month-high-after-fomc-minutes-12762048",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-10-08T01:26:23.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Free Malaysia Today",
    "slug": "free-malaysia-today",
    "url": "https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/business/2026/10/08/dollar-edges-back-from-18-month-high-after-fomc-minutes"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The dollar index, a gauge of the U.S. greenback's strength against six key currencies, remained stable around 102.23 on Thursday, having climbed 0.3% on Wednesday. Singapore: Despite starting the Asian trading day at its strongest level in over 18 months, the dollar hovered close to this peak. This surge followed hawkish remarks from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), suggesting central bank officials viewed inflation as the primary threat to their forecasts. The greenback's strength is currently within a narrow range of its highest levels since April 9, 2025, following market turbulence triggered by the \"Liberation Day\" tariff announcement the previous week. At the Fed's September 15-16 meeting, policymakers unanimously agreed to raise interest rates by 0.25%, but the released minutes revealed internal disagreements over the decision. The FOMC minutes bolstered the bullish sentiment from the Fed's rate hike, with the majority of participants still favoring additional rate hikes and most seeing an upward risk to inflation at the time of the meeting. Westpac analysts noted that the minutes offered little to change expectations that the Fed would refrain from further rate hikes at its upcoming meeting. Fed funds futures imply a 19% chance of a 25-basis-point increase at the Fed's next two-day gathering on October 28, unchanged from the previous day, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool. The U.S. dollar slipped against the Japanese yen by 0.2% to 157.815 yen, following Japanese data indicating the country's current account surplus widened to 4.062 trillion yen ($25.7 billion) in August, surpassing the median forecast of 3.19 trillion yen. The Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar were both flat at $0.6960 and $0.5600, respectively. The U.S. dollar was also unchanged against the Chinese yuan at 6.7015 yuan in offshore markets. The euro and the British pound remained steady at $1.1201 and $1.3215, respectively. Meanwhile, Bitcoin declined 0.2% to $83,233.40, while Ether dropped slightly 0.1% to $2,571.07.",
  "summary": "Hawkish minutes from US central bank policymakers signalled they viewed inflation as the biggest risk to the outlook.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 5,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Investing.com",
        "title": "Dollar edges back from 18-month high after FOMC minutes",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/08/dollar-edges-back-from-18-month-high-after-fomc-minutes-12752405",
        "published": "2026-10-08T00:48:38.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "New Straits Times",
        "title": "Dollar edges back from 18-month high after FOMC minutes",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/08/dollar-edges-back-from-18-month-high-after-fomc-minutes",
        "published": "2026-10-08T00:48:49.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Free Malaysia Today",
        "title": "Dollar edges back from 18-month high after FOMC minutes",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/08/dollar-edges-back-from-18-month-high-after-fomc-minutes-12762479",
        "published": "2026-10-08T01:26:23.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Business Recorder",
        "title": "Dollar edges back from 18-month high after FOMC minutes",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/08/dollar-edges-back-from-18-month-high-after-fomc-minutes-12772157",
        "published": "2026-10-08T03:03:33.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}