By Gregor Stuart Hunter and Lucy Raitano<\/p>\n
SINGAPORE\/LONDON, May 25 (Reuters) – The dollar fell against major currencies on Monday as hopes of a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz pushed oil prices \u200cbelow $100 per barrel, even as the U.S. and Iran played down the chances of reaching an agreement \u200csoon.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile many global markets – including in the U.S., Hong Kong, the UK and the majority of Europe – are closed for holidays on Monday, \u200bthinning liquidity.<\/p>\n
Against the yen, the U.S. dollar was down 0.2% at 158.94 yen, while the euro rose 0.31% to $1.11639 and the British pound gained 0.42% to $1.34865.<\/p>\n
The Australian dollar advanced 0.5% at $0.7162, while its kiwi counterpart tacked on 0.37% to $0.58685.<\/p>\n
The U.S. dollar index fell about 0.2% to 99.059.<\/p>\n
As diplomatic efforts to find a resolution to the Iran war continue, U.S. Secretary \u200cof State Marco Rubio said there would \u2060either be a good agreement or Washington would deal with the country in “another way.”<\/p>\n
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said conclusions had been reached on many topics discussed in a potential memorandum \u2060of understanding with the U.S., but this did not mean Tehran was close to signing an agreement.<\/p>\n
Oil markets tumbled on hopes of a peace deal, with Brent crude prices down 4.5% to $98.9 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate was at $88.98 a \u200bbarrel, off \u200b4.4%.<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, there were conflicting signs on a peace \u200bdeal. U.S. President Donald Trump said on social \u200cmedia on Saturday that a memorandum of understanding on a peace deal with Iran had been “largely negotiated,” with both countries and mediators in Pakistan reporting progress.<\/p>\n
However, on Sunday Trump said on Truth Social the U.S. blockade on Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz would “remain in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed”.<\/p>\n
“Markets have become conditioned to be incredibly patient on a tangible breakthrough, but the base case of a deal \u200cremains firm, with the weekend news providing further conviction, even if \u200bthe timing remains unclear,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone \u200bGroup Ltd in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
He added that if Brent \u200bdrops towards $90 this would give risk assets renewed life as short-term inflation expectations fall and \u200cimplied rate hike bets for 2027 are pared \u200bback.<\/p>\n
European Central Bank policymaker Yiannis \u200bStournaras said on Monday that if euro zone inflation overshoots the ECB target temporarily but significantly, there should be a cautious adjustment of monetary policy in a more restrictive direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Gregor Stuart Hunter and Lucy Raitano SINGAPORE\/LONDON, May 25 (Reuters) – The dollar fell against major currencies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[107625,28,101,801,183066,210369],"class_list":["post-663906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-brent-crude-prices","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-iran","tag-peace-deal","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}