NEW YORK- The dollar slipped as its safe-haven allure diminished, on hopes of a potential vaccine for the novel coronavirus that outweighed concerns about the surge in infections in the United States and around the world.
The US currency posted its largest weekly percentage loss against a basket of major currencies in a month.
On Friday, Gilead Sciences Inc said additional data from a late-stage study showed its antiviral remdesivir reduced the risk of death and significantly improved the conditions of severely ill COVID-19 patients.
That helped a rally in US stocks and pushed the dollar lower.
“When we talk about the dollar these days, it’s about the correlation with risk and that’s still happening now,” said John Doyle, vice president for dealing and trading, at Tempus, Inc. in Washington.
“I think the vaccine news is offsetting the surge in cases,” he added.
More than 60,500 new COVID-19 infections were reported across the United States on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, the largest one-day increase in any country since the pandemic emerged in China last year.
But analysts said currency investors may be looking forward to the treatments being developed for the virus.
