BofA: Dollar's Safe-Haven Attributes in Full Swing, Non-Farm Payrolls Report Reduced to a Supporting Role

Odaily The U.S. dollar is experiencing its best week in over a year, strengthening as the ultimate safe haven amid Middle East conflicts and surging oil prices. As of press time, the spot dollar index has risen 1.5% this week, marking the largest gain since late 2024. Hostilities are disrupting crude oil production and shipping, and exacerbating inflation concerns for the Federal Reserve and other central banks. This has led traders to scale back their bets on Fed rate cuts, further boosting the dollar. Complicating the economic backdrop, a report on Friday showed U.S. employers unexpectedly cut jobs last month. However, with the focus primarily on energy prices, the data only briefly weighed on the dollar, which soon resumed its upward trend. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield also climbed for a fifth consecutive day. Alex Cohen, a foreign exchange strategist at Bank of America, stated, "In this environment, markets are looking through weak data as persistent uncertainty and oil prices at new highs are overwhelmingly the dominant drivers." (Jin10)