Dollar slumps as soft confidence report fans Fed expectations

Dollar slumps as soft confidence report fans Fed expectations

Investing.com – The dollar weakened against most major currencies on Tuesday after a widely-watched gauge of U.S. consumer confidence disappointed investors and bolstered ongoing expectations for the Federal Reserve to keep its dollar-weakening monetary stimulus programs in place through early 2014.

Stimulus tools such as the Fed's USD85 billion in monthly bond purchases aim to drive recovery by pushing down long-term interest rates, weakening the dollar as long as they remain in effect.

In U.S. trading on Tuesday, EUR/USD was up 0.39% at 1.3570.

The Conference Board reported earlier that its index of U.S. consumer confidence declined to 70.4 in November from 72.4 in October.�

Analysts were expecting the index to rise to 72.9 this month, and the disappointing reading weakened demand for the dollar by keeping expectations alive for the Fed to hold off on scaling back monthly bond purchases until early 2014, possibly in March, when Fed Chair Nominee Janet Yellen holds her first policy meeting as head of the U.S. central bank.�

The news offset official data revealing that the number of building permits issued in the U.S. in October rose to its highest level since January 2008.

The Commerce Department reported earlier that the number of building permits issued rose 6.2% to a seasonally adjusted 1.034 million units from September's total of 970,000. Analysts expected building permits to decline to 940,000 units in October.

Elsewhere in the U.S. housing sector, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 0.7% in September from August and 13.3% on year in September.

The monthly increase met expectations, though September's on-year gain, the fastest since February of 2006, beat consensus forecasts for a 13.0% reading.

Meanwhile across the Atlantic Ocean, the euro shrugged off dovish remarks by European Central Bank board member Benoit Coeure, who said earlier that negative deposit rates are still a possibility.

The greenback was down against the pound, with GBP/USD up 0.34% at 1.6212.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney reiterated that the bank's 7% target for unemployment was still a threshold at which the bank would consider raising interest rates.

"The exact timing of when that 7% threshold will be achieved is subject to uncertainty. We do our best to give our estimates of that uncertainty... One month's unemployment figures does not have a material change on those likelihoods," he said.

The comments came during testimony on the BoE's quarterly inflation report before parliament's Treasury committee.

On the economy, Carney said that "all the elements" were in place for a pick-up in activity, which gave the pound support.

The dollar was down against the yen, with USD/JPY down 0.37% at 101.30, and down against the Swiss franc, with USD/CHF down 0.57% at 0.9066.

The dollar was up against its cousins in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with USD/CAD up 0.02% at 1.0546, AUD/USD down 0.33% at 0.9132 and NZD/USD trading down 0.04% at 0.8204.

The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was down 0.35% at 80.67.

On Wednesday, the U.S. is to release data on durable goods orders, a report on manufacturing activity in the Chicago region and revised data on consumer sentiment.�

The Labor Department is to release the weekly report on initial jobless claims one day ahead of schedule due to Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday.