The dollar tumbled on Thursday, lifting world shares to their highest level of the year, after the Federal Reserve scaled down its own expectations of the number of U.S. rate hikes likely over the next nine months, NBC News reported.
The fed cut its forecast from four hikes to two for the year, triggering a slump in the dollar and a surge in risk appetite that rolled from Wall Street to Asia and then into Europe, where London, Frankfurt and Paris opened 0.5 to 0.8 percent higher and bond yields fell.
Commodity markets cheered too. Brent oil jumped over $41 a barrel as a number of large producers also nailed down a date for an output freeze meeting.