The U.S. dollar rose on Wednesday, marking its biggest one-day gain in more than three months against a basket of currencies, even as Wall Street recovered from Monday's stock market rout and limited the greenback's safe-haven appeal.
Much of the dollar's advance stemmed from euro's weakness in the wake of reports that the leader of Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), Martin Schulz, would not be taking over as finance minister for Europe's biggest economy. The euro's fall accelerated after European Central Bank policymaker Ewald Nowotny told the German Wiener Zeitung newspaper the United States is deliberately weakening the dollar.
"So you have an ECB governing member who's discussing U.S. manipulation of the dollar weaker, and the ECB does not approve of that," said Douglas Borthwick, head of FX at Chapdelaine Foreign Exchange in New York.
The index that tracks the dollar against a basket of six currencies extended its winning streak to four sessions. It was last up 0.85 percent at 90.35.
The greenback has benefited as investors favored it over the euro and currencies of economies that are seen growing faster than the United States.
"The longer-term impacts around the dollar will really be drawn from economic fundamentals and the path of monetary policy relative to other major trading partners, inflation, and not likely due to short-term market volatility," said Bill Northey, senior vice president at U.S Bank Wealth Management in Helena, Montana.
The euro was down 0.92 percent at $1.2262, while the and New Zealand dollar were down down 1.05 percent and down 1.66 percent, respectively.
The U.S. dollar touched a high of 109.710 earlier Wednesday as Tokyo's Nikkei soared, taking their cue from a late Tuesday rebound on Wall Street. But the dollar drifted lower as the Nikkei, which rose as much as 3.4 percent, gave back most of its gains as U.S. stock index futures fell during Asian trade.
The greenback was up 0.08 percent at 109.63 yen.
The Swiss franc, a perceived safe haven along with the yen, was up 0.88 against the dollar at 0.944 franc.
In late Wednesday trading, the was up 0.03 percent at 2,695.97, returning to positive territory after its year-to-date gain was wiped out on Monday.
"If anything, we continue to expect a weaker dollar going forward and we expect that these shorter-term moves in the dollar, where you're seeing some dollar strength against some currencies like the euro, are really short-term in nature, Borthwick said.