Economy
February 16, 2015
Currency Update for Steel Trading Nations
Written by Peter Wright
The monthly value of the Federal Reserve Broad Index value of the US $ against our major trading partners has continued to strengthen and in January reached 92.44 after breaking 90 in December for the first time since July 2009. The monthly BI is a “Real” inflation adjusted index. The Fed also reports a daily nominal (non-inflation adjusted) index.
On February 3rd 2014, the value for the daily index was 103.8026, the index then weakened, turned around at mid-year and on February 6th (the last date published by the Fed) had reached 114.241 the highest value since March 12th 2009 and an increase of 10.9 percent in one year. Figure 1 shows real monthly index and that in the short term (4 years) the value of the US $ underwent steady appreciation for the first 3.5 years and has shot up strongly in the last six months.
