Federal Reserve's Statement Fails to Support Dollar

The dollar struggled to rise despite U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers reiterating their commitment to fighting inflation, while the Australian dollar surged after China eased restrictions on coal imports from Australia. The minutes from the Fed's monetary policy meeting in December, released last night, revealed that officials agreed the central bank should slow the pace of large interest rate hikes, but they remain focused on curbing inflation and are concerned about any "misperception" in financial markets regarding their commitment to this goal. However, this failed to give a boost to the American currency, which fell 1.4 percent against the Canadian dollar. In the latest trading session, the British pound settled at $1.2062 after climbing 0.76 percent against the U.S. dollar in the previous session. The euro rose 0.19 percent to $1.0624, following gains of over 0.5 percent. Against a basket of currencies, the U.S. dollar index decreased 0.14 percent to 104.06 after dropping 0.5 percent yesterday. The Australian dollar jumped 1.7 percent amid reports that China's planning authority allowed three government-backed facilities and the largest steelmaker to resume coal imports from Australia, marking the first move of its kind since Beijing imposed an unofficial ban on coal trade with Canberra in 2020. The Australian dollar settled at $0.6835 in the latest trading, while its New Zealand counterpart rose 0.11 percent to $0.6298 after increasing 0.7 percent in the previous session.