Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar fell on Thursday after a series of economic data, including a range of consumer health, showing retail spending slowed in April as uncertain economic views are uncertain about emotions.
The Commerce Department said retail sales rose 0.1% after a 1.7% increase in March, while Reuters surveyed economists expects to remain unchanged after a previously reported 1.5% increase in March.
The March boost was partly due to the purchase of items such as cars being launched before U.S. President Donald Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement.
The Labor Department said in another report that the producer price index (PPI) of final demand fell by 0.5% after last month's unchanged reading in March.
It has been affected by the decline in demand for air travel and hotel accommodation due to trade and trade policies towards Trump, immigration crackdowns, and references to Canada as the 51st state and the desire to obtain Greenland.
But other Labor Department data shows that initial unemployment claims stabilize at 229,000 per week, in line with Reuters’ expectations for economists, despite increasingly limited vacancies.
“I doubt it’s not only tariffs, but I doubt potential weakness in U.S. consumers,” said Thierry Wizman, global FX and interest rate strategist at Macquarie New York.
"It's tariffs, but it's also a potential weakness among American consumers, and given that we're stuck with poor sentiment and policy uncertainty, Q2 will be a weak season. Despite what we did with China last weekend, it hasn't been completely resolved."
The U.S. dollar index measures the Green Guard against a basket of currencies, down 0.11% to 100.89 after falling as much as 0.43% in the meeting, and the euro rose 0.02% to $1.1176.
Green picnics began this week, with more than 1% gains on Monday, which bored people after the U.S. and China announced a 90-day pause in most tariffs imposed on each other since early April.
According to LSEG data, the market has set aside expectations for the U.S. Federal Reserve lowered tax rates this year, with the chance of cutting 25 basis points (BPS) for the first time at the central bank’s September meeting, according to the LSEG data. The previous view was that layoffs could be made in July.
The latest comments from Fed officials suggest that central banks need more data to determine the impact of tariff announcements on prices and the economy before adjusting policies.
In a comment Thursday, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell was not focused on monetary policy or economic outlook, but said central bank officials believe they need to rethink key elements of their monetary policy approach given the inflation experience over the past few years.
Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr said the economy is moving towards a central bank's 2% target in terms of inflation, but trade policy raises uncertainty about the outlook.
The dollar weakened by 0.73% to 145.68 when the yen was versus the yen, while Sterling grew by 0.23% to $1.329 after the UK economy grew, up from expectations in early 2025.
Several major brokers, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Barclays, have shrunk their U.S. recession forecasts and their views on Fed policy this week as trade tensions appear to have been temporarily laid off.
(Reports by Chuck Mikolajczak, other reports by Ankur Banerjee in Tokyo and Medha Singh in Bangalore, edited by Ed Osmond and Diane Craft)