Dollar strengthened after emergency Fed rate cut to 0

US dollar bullish bets more than tripled to $8.28 billion from $2.28 billion against the major currencies during the one week period, according to the report of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) covering data up to March 17 and released on Friday March 20. The ICE US dollar index gained more than 3% during that period after Fed’s emergency full percentage point rate cut Sunday, March 15, and the start of the purchase program in the magnitude of $700 billion in Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities. Later on March 17 the Fed launched the Commercial Paper Funding Facility - CPFF program, and began to buy directly short term corporate bonds in order to help companies affected by the coronavirus pandemic.