The US dollar is falling against its G10 peers, a boon for domestic companies with relatively high exposure to overseas markets, as the Federal Reserve has likely already enacted its largest increases to benchmark interest rates, even with future rate hikes expected later in 2023.
The US dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six G10 currencies, is down nearly 8% from Nov. 2, 2022, when the Fed approved a fourth-consecutive 75-basis-point rate hike to bring the benchmark fed funds rate to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%. The Fed raised rates by a combined 125 basis points at its next four meetings — pushing the benchmark rate above 5% — then paused earlier in June, the first instance of no action on rates since January 2022.
While the majority of Fed officials expect additional rate hikes in 2023, as inflation remains persistently high and the labor market remains tight, the US dollar has failed to rally.
The US dollar tends to rise with rate hikes as investors move to dollar-denominated investments, such as US Treasury bonds, in order to take advantage of rising interest rates. A strong US dollar can lower the price of foreign goods but increase the price of goods in overseas markets and chill global demand. The US dollar rally in 2022 contributed to rising inflation worldwide and increased the costs of foreign debt service.
Losing ground
The US dollar, which gained substantial ground on all its G10 peers throughout much of one of the central bank's most aggressive rate hiking cycles in its history, has lost ground to every G10 currency, except the Norwegian krone, since early November 2022.
The US dollar was up 11.24% on the euro from March 17, 2022, to Nov. 2, 2022, but has since lost 10.33%.
Market responds
The US dollar's relative weakness has helped large-cap US companies with high foreign revenue exposure. The S&P 500 Foreign Revenue Exposure Index, for example, is up 23.03% since the start of the year, while the S&P 500 US Revenue Exposure Index is down 2.82%.
The foreign exposure index measures the performance of companies with high revenue exposure to non-US regions, while the US index measures the performance of companies that earn more US revenue than the average S&P 500 stock.