THE dollar depreciated 1.26% to 99.11 largely due to the month-end rebalancing added with the dovish Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting after the Federal Reserve (Fed) opened the door for more monetary easing and dampened expectations for a quick economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis.
Nevertheless, the Fed kept its policy rate unchanged between 0% and 0.25% and maintained its open-ended quantitative easing (QE) programme. Meanwhile, data released this week continues to disappoint, which includes the first-quarter 2020 (1Q20) gross domestic product (GDP) contracting larger than expected by -4.8% quarter-on-quarter (q/q) annualised from 2.1% q/q annualised in 4Q19 (cons: -4% q/q).