The dollar is only halfway through the ‘hawkish Fed’ rally

The dollar index passed 101, which we last saw for just over a week at the height of the lockdowns. But history suggests that this rally has roughly passed the halfway point.

Except for a brief period of stock market panic in March 2020, the last time the dollar was at this level against a basket of the six most popular currencies was in April 2017. The Dollar Index peaked in the 103-104 area in both cases and has not traded consistently higher for the past 20 years.

The past two times, the dollar’s rise has been halted by the Fed, easing its policy or tone of commentary, as we have seen stock and commodity markets crash along with the USD rally. That is not the case this time, so the DXY is unlikely to stop near 103-104 as it has done in the last six years.

We are now seeing a rise in the dollar, mainly on the Fed’s switch to monetary tightening mode. We saw that the last three such impulses of dollar growth, which started in 2014, 1998, and 1992 caused the DXY to appreciate by about 25%.

Applying this pattern to the current case, we get that the dollar has exhausted just over half of its upside potential and could strengthen as much as 110-112 on the DXY in the next few months.

For EURUSD, this scenario sets up a plunge towards parity, the lows of the last 20 years. For USDJPY, it could spike to 140, which has not been seen since 1998. And for GBPUSD, a return to 1.2000, the lows of the Brexit-fear era.

The FxPro Analyst Team