The dollar fell and US government bonds rallied after Donald Trump picked Scott Bessent to run the Treasury, a Wall Street veteran who investors expect will take the sting out of the administration’s more aggressive trade and economic policy proposals.
A gauge of the greenback fell as much as 0.6% on Monday, its biggest decline in over two weeks, before paring the drop in early New York trading. The euro rebounded from the weakest level since 2022 reached last week. The yield on 10-year Treasuries fell as much as eight basis points to 4.32%, the lowest level since mid November.
Bessent, who runs macro hedge fund Key Square Group, has called for a gradual approach to implementing trade restrictions, and has appeared open to negotiating the exact size of tariffs championed by the president elect. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bessent said his priority will be to deliver on Trump’s various tax cut pledges, while also cutting spending and “maintaining the status of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”
“Bessent is seen as an antidote to Trump’s most extreme economic views,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB.
The dollar notched its longest stretch of weekly advances in more than a year on Friday as the prospect of an all-out global trade war weighed on currencies across the world. Trump has threatened to hit Chinese shipments with a 60% tariff and impose a 10% levy tariff on goods from all other countries.
Bessent’s nomination, which needs to be confirmed by the US Senate before he takes the job, is at odds with Trump’s choices of a series of unorthodox candidates and absolute loyalists for other key positions. Other prominent contenders included former Federal Reserve board member Kevin Warsh and Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick, who had the support of Elon Musk.
“The Bessent selection certainty doesn’t fully negate the potential fallout from a renewed focus on trade wars and tariffs, although by eliminating some of the more extreme scenarios, the market has surely derived a degree of comfort in the outlook for the bond market,” wrote Ian Lyngen, head of US rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets.
Still, the dollar’s gain over the past eight weeks is unlikely to be erased fully. Speculative traders boosted their bets on dollar gains in the week ending Nov. 19 to the most bullish level since late June, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. A gauge of one-month risk reversals on the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index has pulled back from a near-term high in October but suggests bullish sentiment remains strong.
Meanwhile, bond traders have dialed back expectations for Fed easing in 2025 amid fears inflation could accelerate in a robust US economy. Swaps are pricing just 68 basis points of rate cuts by the end of next year.
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