The dollar remained stable against the euro in a peaceful foreign exchange market, after an intervention by the President of the American Central Bank (Fed) Jerome Powell and before the details of the stimulus plan of future President Joe Biden.

Around 20:00 GMT, the dollar outpaced the euro at 1.2157 dollars, as at the close the day before.

The greenback, which at the beginning of the month was at its lowest level in two and a half years on the Dollar Index, which compares it to other major currencies, strengthened in recent sessions.

Against the euro, it even rose briefly on Thursday, January 14, to its highest in a month, to 1.2111 dollars per euro.

Joe Biden was due to present the basics of the next economic aid package at the end of the day. The future president promised “trillions of dollars” to deal with the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Until the Democrats won the Georgia Senate, currency traders expected that Mr. Biden would not have a congressional majority, which would have complicated the passage of support measures and forced the Fed to boost the economy with very loose monetary policy, which weakens the dollar.

The dollar strengthened slightly before stabilizing after the intervention of Central Bank (Fed) boss Jerome Powell. He reiterated that a rate hike was “not coming soon.”

While stressing that the problem of low inflation was “the most difficult to solve,” Mr. Powell cautioned that an acceleration in consumer spending, along with the rollout of vaccinations, could lead to temporary price increases.

“The Fed will welcome additional fiscal support, but recent comments (from members of the monetary committee) show that they don't want rates to rise too quickly,” said Lee Hardman, an analyst at MUFG.

“Fed policy should remain flexible for a long time, the dollar's rebound should not continue,” he said.

After a violent correction at the beginning of the week, bitcoin was back on track: at 39,868.54 dollars at 20:00 GMT (+6.93%), it was approaching its all-time high, reached $41,981.76 on Friday, in highly volatile exchanges.