the us dollar resumed its slide on monday and reached multiyear lows against the british pound and the australian dollar as traders focused on the promise of coronavirus vaccinations and the outlooks for economic growth and inflation that could push bond yields higher the us dollar index was last down 03 in afternoon trading in new york at 90046 and about even for the year the dollar has been trending down in february and has now given up about all of its january recovery from a 2020 decline of nearly 7 the dollars latest retreat comes with spreading belief that the us will go farther than necessary to support the economy with government spending and easy money policies and end up with too much inflation and too much additional debt looking for any sign that the us federal reserve might become less dovish and more mindful of inflation markets will be watching testimony on tuesday from federal reserve chair jerome powell to the senate banking committee the dollars downtrend has come as the benchmark yield on 10year treasury notes has climbed to 137 from 11 at end of january the 10year yield was relatively steady in trading on monday in advance of powells testimony which will go into a second day on wednesday before another committee the dollar continues to wax and wane with us data that have painted a mixed picture of the worlds biggest economy joe manimbo senior market analyst at western union business solutions said in a note on monday weakness in us employment has been undermining dollar rallies as markets see wavering jobs data reinforcing the federal reserves commitment to low interest rates manimbo added the euro rose 04 against the dollar to 12162 data on monday showed german business morale rose more than expected in february due notably to the countrys resilient industrial sector exchange rates between the euro and dollar will depend on whether the us economy really will be able to achieve a stronger postlockdown boom than europe commerzbank analyst ulrich leuchtmann said the british pound was last up 05 to 14066 and the highest levels since april 2018 as prime minister boris johnson announced a path out of lockdowns on the uks relative success providing covid19 vaccinations weve clearly started to price in a lot of good news said ned rumpeltin head of european currency strategy at td securities the us dollar fell to threeyear lows against the australian dollar which benefits from rising commodity prices the aussie was last up to 07917 at its highest levels since march 2018 commodity currencies and the pound are particularly strong against the dollar and this trend looks set to continue said yukio ishizuki foreign exchange strategist at daiwa securities australia on monday began its mass covid19 vaccine programme as the country looked set to report no local cases for the third straight day which gave the aussie a boost bitcoin fell 6 on monday to 53866 after surging to a record high of 58354 a day earlier the cryptocurrency pared losses as fallling as much as 16 on monday and going as low as 47400