By Gina Lee

Investing.com – The dollar was down on Monday morning in Asia, steadying after its steepest weekly loss in more than a month, as investors gauge the relative pace of interest rate hikes from central banks.

By 10:44 ET (23:44 GMT), the that monitors the greenback against other currencies had fallen 0.01%, to 93.618.

It edged up 0.5% to 113.64

While the pair gained 0.09%, it fell to 0.7471. Australia released its data on Wednesday. With New Zealand’s markets closing for the holiday, the pair fell 0.04% to 0.7171.

China’s recent COVID-19-related outbreak caused a slight increase in the price of the pair, which pushed it up 0.9% to 6.3899. This pair edged up 0.14 to 1.3770. The Bank of England has a 60% chance of raising its interest rates at its next meeting.

After Jerome Powell, Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said Friday that asset tapering must begin quickly, the greenback weakened against the Japanese yen. However, he did not say it was yet the right time to increase interest rates. Powell’s remarks came after investors priced in Fed interest rate hikes starting in the second half of 2022. In anticipation of the move by other central banks sooner, however, they’ve already began to trim long dollar positions.

Some investors were cautious about any further gains. However, the Fed is likely to soon begin asset tapering.

Kim Mundy, a Commonwealth Bank of Australia currency analyst told Reuters: “Dollar Risks remain skewed toward the upside.”

“Fed members slowly admit that inflation risks may be skewed towards the upside. The upshot of this is that the interest rate market can continue to price in a Fed Funds rate increase cycle that will support the dollar.”

Investors await U.S. data. The first will be available on Wednesday, and then the second quarter one day later.

On Thursday, the and will both present their policy decisions.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey surprised everyone by cutting the interest rates on state banks, and the market was ready for them to sell.