US Dollar Index slips from its 18-month high

Brent fell below $98 a barrel as Gulf exports picked up, and bond yields in Europe and the US fell with it. France got the most relief, as the extra yield investors want for holding its 10-year debt over Germany's narrowed to about 1.3 percentage points from more than 1.5 on Friday.

The Euro, more than half the Dollar Index, has rebounded from Monday's low, its weakest since May 2025. Every other currency in the index has gained on the Dollar except the Yen and the Swiss Franc, the two that investors buy when they're nervous.

Investors are buying risk, and the S&P 500 has hit a record. The record is narrow. Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) now make up more than 21% of the S&P 500, and the Russell 2000 of smaller companies is barely higher.

Part of Brent Crude Oil's fall is a Group of Seven (G7) release of 100 million barrels of emergency stocks over four months. That's about five days of what went through the Strait of Hormuz before the war.

On the charts

Monday's bar topped out just above 102.50, the highest since April 2025, and left a long upper wick. Tuesday's bar has gone back under 102.00 and below Monday's low.

The drop reached the 101.75 area, less than a fifth of the rally from the September 9 low near 98.60, and the index is trading near 101.85. Momentum indicators have broadly turned down since late September. The index is still well above its 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) near 100.35.

DXY, daily chart