Dollar strengthens against dong VNEXPRESS

The U.S. dollar rose against the Vietnamese dong Monday morning as it held mostly firm against major currencies.

Vietcombank sold the greenback at VND26,380, up 0.01% over the weekend. The currency gained 0.43% to around VND27,328 on the black market.

The State Bank of Vietnam hiked its reference rate by 0.01% to VND25,124.

Globally, the dollar started the first full trading week of the New Year on the front foot, rising to a 3-1/2-week peak versus the euro and a two-week high against the yen, Reuters reported.

The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, was up 0.1% at 98.55 on Monday, extending recent gains into a fifth consecutive day.

The dollar added 0.1% to $1.1704 per euro, and earlier strengthened as far as $1.170025 for the first time since Dec. 11. It climbed 0.2% to 157.08 yen after reaching 157.255 for the first time since Dec. 22.

The dollar advanced 0.1% to $1.3443 per British pound. The Aussie declined 0.2% to $0.6682.

Currency traders largely looked past the United States’ weekend raid in Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro, focusing instead on a slate of U.S. macroeconomic indicators due this week that could be crucial in steering Federal Reserve policy.

A recent run of resilient U.S. data has markets contemplating a potentially slower pace of interest rate cuts this year, said Kyle Rodda, senior financial markets analyst at Capital.com.