U.S. Dollar Slips As Focus Shifts To Upcoming Trump's Meet With GCC Leaders

(RTTNews) - The U.S. Dollar value ticked lower on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump hinted at returning to a possible military confrontation with Iran. Trump is planning to take a call after his upcoming meeting with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council on Tuesday in New York.

Today, the U.S. Dollar Index DXY, which measures the Greenback against a basket of other major currencies, was last seen trading at 100.21, down by 0.04 (or 0.04%).

While against the Euro, the USD was trading at 1.149, down by 0.08%, against the GBP, the USD was trading at 1.339, down by 0.27%.

Against the USD, the Japanese Yen was trading at 156.869, down by 0.58%.

Against the USD, the Swiss Franc was trading at 0.822, up by 0.31%; and the Canadian Dollar was trading at 1.398, up by 0.06%.

Against one unit of Australian Dollar, the USD was trading at 0.712, down by 0.21%.

On Wednesday, Trump stated that the U.S. was hopefully towards the end of its war with Iran.

Later, Axios reported that Trump is expected to hold a meeting with leaders of six gulf nations, namely Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman, on Tuesday in New York to discuss about the next phase in the ongoing U.S.-Iran war.

However late yesterday, in an interview with Axios, Trump stated that he is set to make a big judgment regarding Iran.

Trump added that the critical decision includes the possibility of the U.S. annihilating Iran. However, Trump declined to commit on whether he will take the call before or after the mid-term elections in the U.S. which are scheduled to be held in November. He merely remarked that anything could happen.

Despite triggering concerns of re-escalation in the gulf, Trump stressed that first he wanted to discuss directly with the U.S. allies in the gulf before arriving at a decision.

Since the start of the gulf war, whenever the U.S. forces launched strikes on Iran, Iran bombed the oil and energy facilities as well as the U.S. bases, located in the neighboring nations.

Further, commercial shipping traffic across the Strait of Hormuz remains stands severely disrupted.

Investors are optimistic that, on Tuesday, the Gulf Cooperation Council members would urge the U.S. to halt military operations and bring the U.S. and Iran back to negotiating table.

As a result, crude oil prices moved lower sharply.

Data from the U.S. Federal Reserve revealed that industrial production in the U.S. was unchanged in August after increasing 0.20% in July, falling short of market expectations for a 0.30% rise.

However, on a year-on-year basis, it increased 1.40% in August over the same month in the previous year.

In Japan today, as expected, citing inflationary concerns, the Bank of Japan increased interest rates.

The BoJ hiked its overnight call rate by 25 basis points to 1.25%, bringing the rate to its highest level since 1995. The hike is the central bank's second such move this year.

Seven of the BoJ's nine-member rate-setting board voted in favor of the hike, while two members (Ayano Sato and Toichiro Asada) advocated a hold as the economic outlook was uncertain. The central bank did not provide any time frame for future hikes.

According to the data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications, Japan's annual inflation rate held at 1.9% in August.

According to the data from Statistics Bureau of Japan, the Consumer Price Index in Japan increased 0.10% in August over the previous month.