Pakistan doesn’t do a damn thing for US, it had helped Laden: Trump

The dollar's dominance will slowly melt away over the coming year on weakening global demand and a sombre U.S. economic outlook, according to a Reuters poll of currency forecasters whose views depend on there being no second coronavirus shock.

Despite fears a surge in new Covid-19 cases would delay economies reopening and stymie a tentative recovery, world stocks have rallied - with the S&P 500 finishing higher in June, marking its biggest quarterly percentage gain since the height of the technology boom in 1998.

Caught between bets in favour of riskier investments, weak U.S. economic prospects as well as an easing in the thirst for dollars after the Federal Reserve flooded markets with liquidity, the greenback fell nearly 1.0 per cent last month. It was its worst monthly performance since December.

While there was a dire prognosis from the top U.S. medical expert on the coronavirus' spread, the June 25-July 1 poll of over 70 analysts showed weak dollar projections as Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Monday reiterated the economic outlook for the world's largest economy was uncertain.

"The dollar rises in two instances: when you see risk off or when there is a situation where the U.S. is leading the global recovery, and we don't think that's going to be the case anytime soon," said Gavin Friend, senior FX strategist at NAB Group in London.

"The U.S. is playing fast and loose with the virus, and chronologically they're behind the rest of the world."

Currency speculators, who had built up trades against the dollar to the highest in two years during May, increased their out-of-favour dollar bets further last week, the latest positioning data showed.

About 80 per cent of analysts, 53 of 66, said the likely path for the dollar over the next six months was to trade around current levels, alternating between slight gains and losses in a range. That suggests the greenback may be at a crucial crossroad as more currency strategists have turned bearish.

But more than 90 per cent, or 63 of 68, said a second shock from the pandemic would push the dollar higher. Five said it would push the U.S. currency lower.

Much will also depend on debt servicing and repayments by Asian, European and other international borrowers in U.S. dollars.

While an early shortage of dollars in March from the pandemic's first shock pushed the Fed to open currency swap lines with major central banks, international funding strains have eased significantly since. In recent weeks, usage of the facility has reduced dramatically.

That trend is expected to continue over the next six months with major central banks' usage of swap lines to "stay around current levels", according to 32 of 46 analysts. While 13 predicted a sharp drop, only one respondent said use of them would "rise sharply".

The dollar index, which measures the greenback's strength against six other major currencies, has slipped over 5 per cent since touching a more than three-year high in March.

When asked which currencies would perform better against the dollar by end-December, a touch over half of 49 respondents said major developed market ones, with the remaining almost split between commodity-linked and emerging market currencies.

"The dollar is so overvalued, and has been overvalued for a long time, it's time now for it to come back down again, as we head towards the (U.S.) election," added NAB's Friend.

Over the last quarter, the euro has staged a 1.8 per cent comeback after falling by a similar margin during the first three months of the year. For the month of June, the euro was up 1.2 per cent against the dollar.

The single currency was now expected to gain about 2.5 per cent to trade at $1.15 in a year from around $1.12 on Wednesday, slightly stronger than $1.14 predicted last month. While those findings are similar to what analysts have been predicting for nearly two years, there was a clear shift in their outlook for the euro, with the range of forecasts showing higher highs and higher lows from last month.

"In comparison to even a month or two ago, the outlook in Europe has improved significantly," said Lee Hardman, currency strategist at MUFG.

"I think that makes the euro look relatively more attractive and cheap against the likes of the dollar. We're not arguing strongly for the euro to surge higher, we're just saying, after the weakness we have seen in recent years, there is the potential for that weakness to start to reverse."

Berlin, Mar 28: The number of confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide topped 600,000 on Saturday as new cases stacked up quickly in Europe and the United States and officials dug in for a long fight against the pandemic.

The latest landmark came only two days after the world passed half a million infections, according to a tally by John Hopkins University, showing that much work remains to be done to slow the spread of the virus. It showed more than 602,000 cases and a total of over 27,000 deaths.

While the U.S. now leads the world in reported infections — with more than 104,000 cases — five countries exceed its roughly 1,700 deaths: Italy, Spain, China, Iran and France.

“We cannot completely prevent infections at this stage, but we can and must in the immediate future achieve fewer new infections per day, a slower spread,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is in quarantine at home after her doctor tested positive for the virus, told her compatriots in an audio message. “That will decide whether our health system can stand up to the virus.”

The virus already has put health systems in Italy, Spain and France under extreme strain. Lockdowns of varying severity have been introduced across Europe. Merkel's chief of staff, Helge Braun, said that Germany — where authorities closed nonessential shops and banned gatherings of more than two in public — won't relax its restrictions before April 20.

As the epicenter has shifted westward, the situation has calmed in China, where some restrictions on people's lives have now been lifted. Six subway lines restored limited service in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in December, after the city had its official coronavirus risk evaluation downgraded from high to medium on Friday. Five districts of the city of 11 million people had other restrictions on travel loosened after their risk factor was downgraded to low.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and lead to death.

More than 130,000 people have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins' tally.

In one way or another, the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak have been felt by the powerful and the poor alike.

On Friday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the first leader of a major country to test positive for the virus. He said he would continue to work from self-quarantine.

Countries are still scrambling bring home some citizens stranded abroad by border closures and a near-shutdown of flights. On Saturday, 174 foreign tourists and four Nepali nationals on the foothills of Mount Everest were flown out days after being stranded on the only airstrip serving the world's highest mountain.

In neighboring India, authorities sent a fleet of buses to the outskirts of the capital to meet an exodus of migrant workers desperately trying to reach their home villages during the world's largest lockdown.

Thousands of people, mostly young male day laborers but also families, had fled their New Delhi homes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown that began on Wednesday and effectively put millions of Indians who live off daily earnings out of work.

In a possibly hopeful sign, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared a new rapid test from Abbott Laboratories, which the company says can detect the coronavirus in about 5 minutes. Medical device maker Abbott announced the emergency clearance of its cartridge-based test Friday night, saying the test delivers a negative result in 13 minutes when the virus is not detected.

While New York remained the worst-hit city in the U.S., Americans braced for worsening conditions elsewhere, with worrisome infection numbers being reported in New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit.

New Orleans’ sprawling Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, along the Mississippi River, was being converted into a massive hospital as officials prepared for thousands more patients than they could accommodate.

In New York, where there are more than 44,000 cases statewide, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 passed 6,000 on Friday, double what it had been three days earlier.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for 4,000 more temporary beds across New York City, where the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center has already been converted into a hospital.

The struggle to defeat the virus will take “weeks and weeks and weeks,” Cuomo told members of the National Guard working at the Javits Center.

President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act on Friday, ordering General Motors to begin manufacturing ventilators. Trump had previously rejected Cuomo's pleas for tens of thousands more of the machines and the governor's calls to implement the Korean War-era production law.

Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package, after the House approved the sweeping measure by voice vote. Lawmakers in both parties lined up behind the law to send checks to millions of Americans, boost unemployment benefits, help businesses and toss a life preserver to an overwhelmed health care system.

Dr. John Brooks of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans remained “in the acceleration phase” of the pandemic and that all corners of the country were at risk.

"There is no geographic part of the United States that is spared from this," he said.

United Nations, May 8: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday the coronavirus pandemic keeps unleashing a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering. 

The UN chief said anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and in the streets, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread, and COVID-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred. 

Guterres said migrants and refugees have been vilified as a source of the virus -- and then denied access to medical treatment. 

With older persons among the most vulnerable, contemptible memes have emerged suggesting they are also the most expendable, he said. 

And journalists, whistleblowers, health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are being targeted simply for doing their jobs. 

Guterres appealed for an all-out effort to end hate speech globally. The secretary-general called on political leaders to show solidarity with all people, on educational institutions to focus on digital literacy at a time when extremists are seeking to prey on captive and potentially despairing audiences. 

He called on the media, especially social media, to remove racist, misogynist and other harmful content, on civil society to strengthen their outreach to vulnerable people, and on religious figures to serve as models of mutual respect. 

And I ask everyone, everywhere, to stand up against hate, treat each other with dignity and take every opportunity to spread kindness, Guterres said.

The secretary-general stressed that COVID-19 does not care who we are, where we live, what we believe or about any other distinction. His global appeal to address and counter COVID-19-related hate speech follows his April 23 message calling the coronarivus pandemic a human crisis that is fast becoming a human rights crisis. 

Guterres said then that the pandemic has seen disproportionate effects on certain communities, the rise of hate speech, the targeting of vulnerable groups, and the risks of heavy-handed security responses undermining the health response. 

With rising ethno-nationalism, populism, authoritarianism and a push back against human rights in some countries, the crisis can provide a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic, he warned.

In February, Guterres issued a call to action to countries, businesses and people to help renew and revive human rights across the globe, laying out a seven-point plan amid concerns about climate change, conflict and repression.