US Dollar — Loser of the Month

The US dollar showed a monthly decline against all of its major counterparts on the Forex market in April, confirming its long-term downward trend even against the currencies closely connected with the US economy.

The greenback demonstrated the worst month against the euro since September 2010 and the worst month against the Great Britain pound since last July. It also managed to slid against the Canadian dollar, which wasn’t feeling great throughout April too. Of course, the US currency also dropped heavily versus such particularly successful April currencies as the New Zealand dollar and the Swiss franc.

Even thought the dollar was declining against the euro during the whole month, the end of April was particularly bad for it. April 27 FOMC statement that signaled that the Fed has no plans for monetary policy tightening and the worse-than-expectedGDP report for Q1 2011 released a day later buried any hopes for the USD bulls. April became the fifth bad month in a row for dollar vs. euro trading.

On the other hand, such currencies as AUD, NZD and CHF benefited from the positive fundamental reports and unexpectedly good economic growth reported in April, pushing them up against the US dollar. USD/CHF registered its biggest decline since December 2010, while NZD/USD rose fastest since May 2009. Benchmark commodities, such as oil and gold, also ascended significantly against the US currency.

EUR/USD rose from 1.4174 to 1.4803 or 4.4 percent this month. GBP/USD advanced from 1.6038 to 1.6702 or 4.1 percent, while USD/JPY declined from 83.18 to 81.18. The USD/CAD currency pair fell from 0.9697 to 0.9448.

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