new york may 18 reuters  the negative impact of currency fluctuations on north american companies results fell in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared with the previous quarter data from treasury and financial management firm kyriba showed on thursday the collective exchangerate hit including on companies in the united states canada and mexico was 2894 billion in the fourth quarter of last year kyriba said in its report that was down from 4315 billion in 2022s third quarter which was the highest negative impact on record for the firm with data going back to 2013 the fourthquarter 2022 negative impact was still up sharply from the yearago period when the hit was 456 billion the report said strong gains in the us dollar for most of last year weighed on us corporate results with the currency boosted by aggressive interest rate hikes by the federal reserve the us dollar index  which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies was down 77 in the fourth quarter of 2022 and fell 09 in the first quarter of this year the dollar index was up 82 for all of 2022 a stronger dollar makes us exporters products less competitive abroad while hurting us multinationals that need to exchange their earnings into dollars