The US dollar strengthened slightly against the euro, the yen fell in price due to some weakening of demand for safe haven assets on signals of a slowdown in the spread of the Chinese coronavirus.

Powell, who presented a semiannual monetary policy report to the house financial services Committee on Tuesday, said the spread of the coronavirus would have implications for the Chinese economy in the first quarter of 2020 and possibly for the American economy. According to him, it is too early to draw conclusions about whether the epidemic will lead to sustainable and significant changes in the US economy. "We can't assess the economic consequences right now, "he said, adding that "China has taken very serious measures to combat the coronavirus."

The Fed's report, published last Friday, noted that the decline in China as a result of the coronavirus epidemic could spread to the States and global markets "by reducing risk appetite, strengthening the US dollar, as well as reducing trade volumes and commodity prices."

In China, as of 00:00 hours local time on Wednesday, the number of cases of pneumonia caused by the coronavirus was 44,653 thousand people, the fatal outcome was recorded in 1,113 thousand cases, the state health Committee of China reported.