By Gina Lee

Investing.com – The dollar was down on Tuesday morning in Asia but remained near the middle of its recent range. Investors now await U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s Senate Banking Committee hearing later in the day for fresh clues on the timetable and speed of policy normalization.

That tracks the greenback against various currencies fell 0.12% by 10:00 PM ET (3:13 GMT)

This pair increased 0.12% to 115.34.

This was 0.31% higher than the 0.7190 pair. It also showed that Australian grew at a faster pace of 7.3% per month, and was AUD9.423 trillion in November.

This pair rose by 0.2% to 0.6769

While the pair fell 0.6% to 6.3722, it rose 0.12% to 1.3591.

In his opening remarks for the hearing released on Monday, Powell pledged to prevent high inflation from becoming “entrenched,” but did not provide clues about the central bank’s timeline and speed of monetary tightening.

Powell is bidding for a second four-year term at the Fed’s helm and will take questions from senators during his hearing. Lael Mindard, nominee for Fed vice chair, will appear at the hearing on Thursday.

The Kansas City Fed President Esther George will be speaking later, while James Bullard, St. Louis Fed President, will address the audience. They are the first of a series of Fed officials to speak throughout the week.

According to TD Securities strategists, it seems like the Fed thought that “sooner than later” would be the best strategy for higher rates and the need to balance out its finances after the end of bond-buying stimuli.

“An affirmation of March 2022 tightening and early quantitative tightening should support dollar firmness overall, though within well-established ranges,” the note added. Although TD Securities analysts anticipate the first hike to be in June 2022 (though it’s possible that the hike could happen as early as March),

Markets are pricing for an increase in interest rates by May 2022 with two more by November.

Investors are now awaiting U.S. data. The and the will be released on Wednesday followed by the the day after. China’s price and own indexes will be released on Wednesday.