Economy
March 2, 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 103.803, the index then weakened and briefly broke through 102 on July 1st, and by February 20th this year (the last date published by the Fed) had risen to 114.42. In the first 20 days of February the index was fluctuating in a fairly narrow range. Figure 1 shows the nominal daily index through February 20th. The dollar strengthened by 4.6 percent in 3 months, by 1.3 percent in 1 month and by 0.4 percent in 7 days, all through the 20th.
