(Bloomberg) — The dollar will likely weaken further as the US government shutdown drags into a second day, according to a top foreign-exchange currency forecaster.
The political impasse in Washington has already caused a delay in the release of Thursday’s weekly jobless claims and could postpone the latest monthly payrolls report that was scheduled to come out Friday. Absent economic data, words uttered by monetary policymakers will give traders clues on the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate path, said Jason Schenker, president at Prestige Economics.
“A shutdown compounds near-term downside risks for the greenback,” said Schenker in an interview. He topped Bloomberg’s ranking of FX prognosticators for a second quarter in a row.
So far this year, a Bloomberg gauge for the dollar dropped more than 8% and Schenker expects the greenback to fall further. The index edged…