Edit: Ahlam Adly

The US dollar settled near the lowest level in a week against other major currencies Monday, August 16, while declining US consumer morale hurt betting on the Federal Reserve Board tightening its monetary policy early.

A survey by the University of Michigan last weekend showed consumer morale declined to the lowest level since 2011 as infections accelerated with Cofid-19. The dollar fluctuated with the frequency of economic data, and had reached a peak of four months last week as a result of the momentum from labour market recovery, but later retreated after inflation pressures calmed.

The dollar index, which measures the performance of the United States currency against six other currencies at 92.561, changed little, after dropping 0.50% last weekend.

The yuan and the Australian dollar declined after disappointing Chinese economic data.

The dollar slipped to 109.335 yen for the first time since August 4 at today's peak, and later recorded a 0.16% decline at 109.42 as 10-year Treasury yields fell in the Asian session.

Against the euro, the US currency settled at $1.1789 close to the lowest level in a week at $1.18045 reached on Friday.

In Asia, the Australian dollar fell 0.54% to US $0.7336 following disappointing data from China, the country's largest trading partner, as well as tighter isolation procedures.

Factory production and retail sales in China slowed sharply in July as activities were disrupted by a new outbreak of COFID-19 and flooding, confirming signs that economic recovery was losing momentum. The data compressed the yuan and declined from a 10-day peak of 6.4733 against the dollar in immediate transactions at home.