Kevin Buckland

TOKYO, Reuters – The dollar and safe-haven currencies eased Thursday after huge gains in the previous session. Wall Street stock prices plummeted amid growing concerns about the Federal Reserve’s aggressive tightening that could slow growth.

After a overnight jump of 0.55%, the, which measures the greenback in relation to six major peers, fell 0.05% to 103.74. This ended a losing streak of three days.

Following a tumble of 0.86% on Wednesday, the yen lost ground. Dollars rose 0.21% and 128.495 respectively.

Following a drop of 0.6% the Swiss franc strengthened, while the dollar lost another 0.13%, to 0.9869 Franc.

After dropping to as low as 3.015% the previous session, Tokyo’s benchmark traded steady at 2.89%.

The safe-haven rally paused, but sentiment continued to be fragile. Asian stocks fell and U.S. Futures pointed lower. These were just days after a drop of 4% for the Dow and plunge of 5% for the Nasdaq.

The U.S.’s poor housing data Wednesday contributed to the slowdown. Fed Chair Jerome Powell added to the hawkish rhetoric by stating that the U.S. central bank would increase interest rates as necessary to curb an inflationary surge that threatened the foundation of America’s economy.

Powell’s position “makes it difficult to achieve a soft landing” for the U.S. economic, given the long delays between changes in monetary policies and inflation changes,” Joseph Capurso (OTC:), a currency strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney wrote in a client letter. “The dimming outlook on the U.S. economic scene supports the USD” and the safe-haven currencies.”

Following Wednesday’s slump of 0.84%, the euro made some gains and gained 0.25% to $1.0489.

The rose 0.14% to $0.6965 – shaking off a smaller-than-forecast increase in jobs for last month – but the currency had slumped 1.05% on Wednesday.

Sterling was little changed after falling 1.2% overnight. The surge in U.K. inflation, which is now at a 40-year high, caused worries about an economic slowdown.