Dollar advance during Thursday trading puts pressure on Asian shares and commodities
The dollar rose for a fifth straight session on Thursday, putting pressure on Asian shares and commodity-rich markets such as Australia.
The dollar advance, seeing it up around 0.47 per cent against other major currencies during Thursday trading, was prompted by another Federal Reserve official indicating there could be more than one increase in US interest rates this year.
St Louis Fed President James Bullard echoed comments made earlier this week that there may be two rate hike rises this year and that the first could be as soon as April.
Hawkish comments from two US Federal Reserve officials, who said an interest rate hike could come "sooner rather than later", drove down Asian shares on Tuesday.
The commodities and natural resource-heavy Australian stock market lost one per cent over Thursday trading while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.9 per cent, according to Reuters. Japan's Nikkei index rose marginally by 0.1 per cent.