U.S. dollar maintains lead as strongest major currency, oil prices drop amid surging crude inventories By Investing.com

The US dollar has marked its position as the strongest major currency for the third day in a row, with the Japanese Yen trailing as the weakest. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is set to address the Division of Research and Statistics Centennial Conference in Washington today, reaffirming his commitment to uphold borrowing costs aimed at curbing inflation to its 2% target.

Fed Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman highlighted a robust Q3 GDP growth rate of 4.9%, a factor that could potentially influence future policy decisions. This comes as European retail sales experienced an unexpected dip of -0.3%, surpassing the forecasted decline of -0.2%. Concurrently, German industrial production declined by -1.4% for the fifth consecutive month.

In energy markets, an unforeseen rise of nearly 12 million barrels in U.S. crude inventories over the past week has triggered a decrease in oil prices. This development could have broad implications for global energy markets and economies reliant on oil exports.

On the equity front, the US stock market continues its upward trajectory with NASDAQ, S&P, and Dow extending their winning streaks to eight and seven days respectively. Despite this positive trend, European markets have only shown slight gains while Asia Pacific markets closed mostly lower.

Lastly, the US debt market displayed mixed yields with shorter-term yields rising and longer-term ones falling.

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