By Kevin Buckland
TOKYO (Reuters) – The dollar rallied broadly on Wednesday as early exit polls in the extremely close U.S. presidential election appeared to give an edge to Republican Donald Trump.
With 10.1% of the vote counted in key battleground state Georgia, Trump had 60.9% to Democrat Kamala Harris’ 38.6%, according to Edison Research.
Trump won eight states in the election while Harris captured three states and Washington, D.C., Edison Research projected. The early results were as anticipated, with the contest expected to come down to seven swing states.
Trump’s tariff and immigration policies are seen as inflationary by analysts, buoying the dollar.
The dollar index – which measures the currency against six major peers including the euro and yen – rose 0.76% to 104.14 as of 0048 GMT.
The euro dropped 0.77% to $1.0844, while the dollar added 0.68% to 152.64 yen.
Bitcoin climbed more than 3% to $71,317. Trump is seen as more actively supportive of cryptocurrencies than Harris.
“It is too early to call any of these races and to make any real projections on the results so far, but the U.S. dollar has regained a lot of ground lost recently,” said James Kniveton, a senior corporate forex dealer at Convera.
“Risk currencies such as the AUD that appreciated ahead of a tightening race are having a pullback as Trump racks up some early wins.”
The Aussie slid 0.63% to $0.6595.
The U.S. currency jumped more than 1% to 20.3050 Mexican pesos. It rose 0.46% to 7.1291 yuan in offshore trading. Mexico and China are among countries that stand to be hardest hit by Trump tariffs.
(Reporting by Kevin Buckland; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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