USD weakens, rebounds after scare

Story link: USD weakens, rebounds after scare

The US dollar weakened Friday on decreased demand in favor of higher yielding currencies after a Reuters/University of Michigan survey showed US consumer sentiment at 70.2 in September, from 65.7 last month.

The rise in sentiment sent investors looking for riskier investments at the expense of the lower-yielding dollar.

However, the greenback gained back its decline versus the euro after reports of a Coast Guard training exercise on the Potomac River on the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001.

The training exercise, which had not been reported in advance to other agencies including the Harbor Patrol and the Secret Service, frightened some after a report, later dismissed, of shorts fired, as it took place near a route used by a presidential motorcade to take US President Barack Obama to an event at the Pentagon in remembrance of the 9/11 attacks.

At 2:36 p.m. in New York, the dollar traded at $1.4594 to the euro while the yen was at ¥90.515 to the US dollar and at ¥132.1001 to the shared currency.

Meanwhile, the pound gained on the euro and the dollar after the Office for National Statistics reported a gain of 0.2 percent in UK producer prices in August from July’s level.

The pound traded at 87.46 to the euro while it took $1.6686 to buy a pound in afternoon trade in New York.