The dollar is rising as US Treasury yields partially recede the decline

Monday’s dollar rose as government bond yields rose from last week’s two-and-a-half-month lows after initial observations suggested that people suffering from the Omicron COVID 19 strain experienced only mild symptoms.

Omicron news from South Africa helped Wall Street reverse some of its much-sold Friday moves. The sale has yielded 10-year Treasury bonds below 1.4% for the first time since the end of September, strengthening safe havens for the yen and the Swiss franc. The dollar has fallen by up to 0.4% from next year.

The dollar index inched 0.10% higher at 96.29, within the range of November’s 16-month peak of 96.938. It was also 0.2% higher against the yen at 113.05 yen and rebounded 0.4% to the franc.

“The dollar is capitalizing on the narrative of the Fed sticking to its plans for a quicker tapering, which is what we had last week from (Fed Chair Jerome) Powell,” said ING Bank FX strategist Francesco Pesole.

Dollar-long positions climbed for a second straight week to the highest since June 2019, according to data from the U.S. CFTC, while bearish euro positions rose to stand at the highest since March 2020.

The euro slipped a quarter percent to the dollar.

People said the dollar is likely to rise in the longer term, especially given the different political expectations for the euro.

Meanwhile, the Australian dollar rose 0.5% to $ 0.7035, hitting a 13-month low. Kiwi rose 0.1% to $ 0.6750.High-risk currencies were also helped by a slight recovery in the yield curve of government bonds.

The difference between 2-year and 10-year yields widened slightly after narrowing in the year on Friday. However, analysts expect the curve to be even flatter, especially if inflation data expected later in the week supports the Fed’s monetary tightening expectations.

“Looking at the shape of the yield curve, flattening the 210 segments usually slows down some of the performance of commodity currencies,” Pesole said.

Elsewhere, cryptocurrencies have suffered huge losses from the wild weekend when Bitcoin was temporarily crushed by more than 20%. Bitcoin found support on Monday for about $ 49,000.