Dollar climbs after Warsh comments, poised for weekly gain

Dollar climbs after Warsh comments, poised for weekly gain

By Chuck Mikolajczak

Fri, August 28, 2026 at 5:37 PM GMT+3 1 min read

• DX-Y.NYB +0.24%

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK, Aug 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar rose on Friday, extending gains ‌after U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Warsh hinted ‌interest rate hikes may be needed should policymakers not believe ​inflation is headed back towards the central bank's 2% target.

In his debut speech at the Jackson Hole symposium of central bankers, Warsh said the Fed ‌will "have work to ⁠do" should inflation not appear to be cooling, in remarks that acknowledged financial ⁠conditions do not appear restrictive and marked the closest he has come to acknowledging interest rate hikes ​may be ​needed to ease ​price pressures.

Expectations for a ‌rate hike of at least 25 basis points at the Fed's September meeting jumped to about 50% following Warsh's comments, up from about 35% before the speech.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback ‌against a basket of currencies, ​rose 0.46% to 99.57 after ​hitting a session ​high of 99.592, with the euro ‌down 0.46% at $1.1597.

Against the Japanese ​yen, the ​dollar strengthened 0.32% to 159.9 while sterling weakened 0.45% to $1.3533.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; additional reporting ​by Jiaxing ‌Li in Hong Kong and Johann M Cherian ​in Bengaluru; Editing by Jacqueline Wong; Sharon ​Singleton and Chizu Nomiyama)