By Rae Wee and Alun John SINGAPORE/LONDON, Dec 11 (Reuters) – The dollar remained on the back foot on Thursday having tumbled the previous day against most peers as the Federal Reserve delivered a less hawkish outlook than some expected, while the franc strengthened as the Swiss National Bank held rates steady. The greenback did find some support on Thursday as Asian shares and U.S. futures slid after disappointing earnings from U.S. cloud computing giant Oracle reignited fears that surging AI infrastructure costs could outpace profitability. But that only served to slow the selling pressure. The euro was last up 0.15% at $1.1713, a near two-month high, after a 0.6% gain on Wednesday. Sterling was at $1.1338, steady after a 0.65% rise on Wednesday. The dollar also dipped versus the yen. It was down 0.2% at 155.7 yen after a 0.56% drop the previous day. The Fed lowered rates on Wednesday by 25 basis points, but, as the move was widely expected, the reaction reflected much more the broader messaging, projections and the voting split. "Investors were bracing for a hawkish rate cut. In the end, there were only two dissenters to the cut and the Fed kept a rate cut in their median forecast for 2026," said Chris Turner, global head of markets at ING in a note. "Equally, it seems that Chair Powell was reluctant to be boxed into the view that the Fed was now on a pause," he said. Heading into the Fed meeting, traders had been wondering whether they would get a similar message to those sent by the Australian central bank chief and an influential European Central Bank policymaker suggesting their next moves would be rate hikes. Also weighing on the dollar, U.S. Treasuries attracted bids after the Fed announced it would start buying short-dated government bonds from December 12 to help manage market liquidity levels, with an initial round totalling some $40 billion in Treasury bills. SWISSIE STRONG, AUSSIE AND CRYPTO HIT Away from the dollar, the Swiss franc strengthened after the Swiss National Bank left its policy rate unchanged at 0% and said a recent agreement to reduce U.S. tariffs on Swiss goods had improved the economic outlook, even as inflation has somewhat undershot expectations. The dollar dropped 0.46% to 0.7963 francs, its lowest level in three weeks, while the euro shed 0.27% to 0.9331 francs. While the strength of the franc is causing problems for the SNB by weighing heavily on inflation, the SNB's chairman Martin Schlegel reiterated that the hurdle for negative rates is high. Elsewhere, the Australian dollar was hurt by data showing employment in November fell by the most in nine months. Bitcoin, often viewed as a barometer of risk appetite, was hurt by the tech selloff and briefly slid back below the $90,000 level. It was last hovering slightly above that point, down 2.4%. Ether was down more than 4% at $3,200. "Even with a softer Fed outlook, the market is still working through the excess leverage from October, so reactions to macro signals are slower than usual," Gracie Lin, OKX's Singapore CEO, said of the fall in crypto prices. "The 25-basis-point cut was already priced in … and the wider macro and geopolitical backdrop is still uncertain. All of that keeps the immediate response muted." (Reporting by Rae Wee in Singapore and Alun John in LondonEditing by Shri Navaratnam, Gareth Jones and Joe Bavier)
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