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The dollar fell 0.6 percent against a basket of currencies on Wednesday, coming under pressure as Treasury yields dropped on doubts over whether the U.S Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in the wake of China's devaluation of the yuan. The yuan extended its losses, dragging the growth-linked Australian and New Zealand dollars to six-year lows with it, while another set of disappointing Chinese data bolstered safe-haven currencies such as the yen. The euro, meanwhile, rose, helped by the unwinding of euro-funded carry trades in the yuan EURCNH=. The single currency hit a one-month high of $1.11385 EUR=EBS, up 0.8...

Ben S. Bernanke, the newly installed Federal Reserve chairman, suggested this evening that the central bank would need to pay more attention to global financial conditions in setting interest rates, moving beyond its usual focus on domestic economic forces. In his prepared remarks to the Economic Club of New York, Mr. Bernanke told the group gathered at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in midtown Manhattan that to understand the reasons behind movements in American bond yields, "an explanation less centered on the United States might be required." In only his third speech since being sworn in as Fed chairman last month,...

With the economy expanding at a respectable pace, companies hiring and consumers inclined to spend, Federal Reserve policy-makers can feel comfortable about boosting short-term interest rates for a fourth time this year. That's the feeling among economists who believe the Fed will stay the course of the current credit-tightening campaign it started in June. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues want to continue moving a key rate from extra-low levels to more normal ones now that the economy's recovery from the 2001 recession is more deeply rooted. Despite surging oil prices — which have retreated in recent days —...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve is expected to nudge interest rates up for a fourth time this year on Wednesday, acting on the belief that the economy has finally emerged from an extended "soft patch." And the November rate increase is likely to be followed by another quarter-point move at the Fed's final meeting of the year on Dec. 14 with more rate hikes to come in 2005, analysts say. That represents a change in thinking from just a week ago, when many were predicting that the Fed would raise rates this month but then would pause to...

The Federal Reserve (news - web sites) left a key interest rate unchanged Tuesday and began preparing Americans for the possibility that rates will go higher this year as the country bounces back from recession. After 11 consecutive rate reductions last year, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan (news - web sites) and his colleagues opted to continue to hold the federal funds rate — the interest that banks charge each other on overnight loans — at 1.75 percent, the lowest level in 40 years. The decision was announced after a closed-door meeting. In January, the Fed, citing signs of an economic...