NEW YORK: The US dollar hit one-month highs against a basket of peers on Monday and expected volatility in major currencies rose to the highest levels since April on investor jitters over the outcome of Tuesday's US presidential election.
The dollar has strengthened in the past week as risk sentiment has soured, with investors reducing positions due to uncertainty over the result.
"The move we saw last week was a pretty broad derisking and I think that makes a lot of sense; people are naturally skeptical about any sort of prognostication with regards to the election after what happened four years ago," said Erik Nelson, a macro strategist at Wells Fargo in New York.
The dollar index was last up 0.05% at 94.15 after earlier reaching 94.29, the highest since Sept. 29. The euro dipped 0.13% to $1.1632 and the greenback climbed 0.11% against the yen to 104.81 yen.
One-week implied volatility gauges for the euro and the yen were both above 11%, the highest since the beginning of April.
Sterling fell as low as $1.2852, the lowest since Oct. 7. It was last trading at $1.2904, down 0.29% on the day.-Reuters