Treasury Sec. Bessent: US should ‘wait and see’ before lowering interest rates

In a Semafor interview on Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said  that “the US should ‘wait and see’ before lowering interest rates.”

Additional quotes

Confident recent price increases are not “going to get embedded into inflation expectations.”

But I think as we went into January [and] came out of January and February — the economy was very strong.

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index is modestly flat on the day near 98.40, licking its previous wounds.

US Dollar Price Today

The table below shows the percentage change of US Dollar (USD) against listed major currencies today. US Dollar was the weakest against the Japanese Yen.

USDEURGBPJPYCADAUDNZDCHF
USD-0.00%-0.01%-0.18%-0.04%0.16%0.09%-0.01%
EUR0.00%-0.00%-0.17%-0.03%0.16%0.08%-0.02%
GBP0.00%0.00%-0.17%-0.02%0.16%0.09%-0.02%
JPY0.18%0.17%0.17%0.15%0.35%0.27%0.17%
CAD0.04%0.03%0.02%-0.15%0.19%0.14%0.02%
AUD-0.16%-0.16%-0.16%-0.35%-0.19%-0.07%-0.18%
NZD-0.09%-0.08%-0.09%-0.27%-0.14%0.07%-0.11%
CHF0.01%0.02%0.02%-0.17%-0.02%0.18%0.11%

The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the US Dollar from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the Japanese Yen, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent USD (base)/JPY (quote).

Source: https://www.fxstreet.com/news/treasury-sec-bessent-us-should-wait-and-see-before-lowering-interest-rates-202604140314