By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The U.S. dollar edged lower but was on track for an eighth straight week of gains on Friday while global stock indexes advanced as Wall Street rose with Apple shares.
The dollar index’s weekly winning streak would be its longest since 2014, bolstered by recent reports showing the U.S. economy remains resilient.
In contrast, the Chinese yuan fell to its weakest level since 2007 amid concern about China’s slowing economy.
Strong U.S. economic data this week have left some investors worried that even if the Federal Reserve leaves rates unchanged this month, they could remain high for longer than anticipated.
The U.S. Consumer Price Index reading for August is due next week.
“The dollar has been higher on the back of obviously stronger U.S. data …, suggesting that the Fed perhaps has another rate hike before the end of the year,” said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Wall Street’s three major stock indexes rose on Friday, helped by a gain in Apple , which had fallen in the last two sessions on news reports of China curbing iPhone use by state employees. Apple was last up 1.2%
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 115.16 points, or 0.33%, to 34,615.89, the S&P 500 gained 19.97 points, or 0.45%, at 4,471.11 and the Nasdaq Composite added 80.11 points, or 0.58%, at 13,828.94.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was up 0.2%, breaking a seven-day string of losses, while MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.24%.
Dollar gains have also prompted a step up in rhetoric from Japanese policymakers growing uncomfortable with the yen’s slide.
Japan’s top currency diplomat Masato Kanda said this week authorities will not rule out any option to clamp down on “speculative” moves, while chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the government was watching with “urgency.”
The Japanese unit steadied at 147.39 per dollar but remained on the weaker side of the key 145 level that prompted intervention by Japanese authorities last year.
U.S. Treasury yields were mostly lower as investors digested recent comments from several Fed officials, including Fed Bank of New York President John Williams, who late on Thursday acknowledged inflation was falling and that the economy was more balanced.
Benchmark 10-year notes were down 2.4 basis points at 4.238%.
In energy, U.S. crude recently rose 0.98% to $87.72 per barrel and Brent was at $90.86, up 1.05% on the day.
(Additional reporting by Huw Jones in London and Heekyong Yang in Seoul; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Tomasz Janowski, David Evans and Richard Chang)
