As the U.S. Dollar Index tumbles nearly 8.5% in 2025, it’s on track for the worst performance in over 30 years. This could have “profound implications” across asset classes and global markets, says analyst.
What Happened: The X post shared by Otavio Costa, the macro strategist at Crescat Capital, highlights the yearly performance of the Dollar Index over the last 30 years.
The graph depicts its 2025 performance with a red line, which shows the steepest fall in the first half of any year since 1996.
While the index hit its all-time low of 70.698 on March 17, 2008, the graph shows that its worst year-to-date decline stood at 14.68%.
“This likely marks the beginning of a long-term downward trend for the dollar, with far-reaching implications across global markets in my view,” said Costa in his post.
He also highlighted that this year’s dollar decline has led the resource stocks, emerging and other developed markets, and foreign currencies higher.
“Gold led the way, and we're now seeing the ripple effects play out across other asset classes, in my opinion,” he added.
Why It Matters: Chatham House expert David Lubin, in a note from April, pointed to a "view of some within the Trump administration that the reserve currency status of the dollar is more of a burden to the U.S. economy than a blessing."
He explained that this "policy push" from Donald Trump‘s administration aims to weaken the dollar permanently against other currencies, hoping to reduce the trade deficit and attract manufacturers to the U.S.
However, Lubin strongly cautioned against this approach, arguing that "if the international monetary system cannot rely on the dollar’s full convertibility, or its availability in a crisis, it is entering unknown territory.
Undermining the dollar’s global status would not only transmit huge amounts of additional uncertainty to the global economy, but would be a needless act of self-harm for the U.S."
Price Action: The Dollar Index was up 0.06% at the 99.28 level as of the publication of this article, which was 8.49% lower on a year-to-date basis.
The Gold Spot US Dollar Index, on the other hand, rose 0.11% to $3,356.65 per ounce, close to its previous life-high of $3,500.33.
Price Action: The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF QQQ, which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, respectively, rose on Tuesday. The SPY was up 0.57% at $596.09, while the QQQ advanced 0.78% to $527.30, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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