By Victor Reklaitis, MarketWatch , Suryatapa Bhattacharya

Strategist: It will take robust monthly employment figures or hawkish Fed guidance to stop the buck's slide

A key U.S. dollar index on Monday fell to its lowest level in more than four months as the failure of a President Trump-backed measure to repeal Obamacare gave investors a cue to step away from the buck.

The ICE Dollar Index , which measures the currency against a basket of six major rivals, was down 0.6% at 99.08. The gauge has traded on Monday as low as 99.04, representing its lowest mark since the first half of November, according to FactSet data.

The dollar dropped against the yen to Yen110.25, down from Yen111.20 late Friday in New York. The euro rose to $1.0864, up from $1.0799, while the British pound moved up to $1.2564 from $1.2490.

"This is the market reacting to Donald Trump's failure to implement one of his major campaign promises," said Bart Wakabayashi, Tokyo branch manager for State Street.

Read:Wall Street fear threatens a dramatic comeback in the stock market (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-markets-old-friend-volatility-threatening-to-make-a-glorious-return-2017-03-24)

The setback for the White House has strengthened uncertainty over the U.S. administration's ability to push through its agenda. It has added momentum to an unraveling of support for the dollar, which has picked up steam since the Federal Reserve decided to raise U.S. interest rates.

Investors see the failure of the U.S. administration to secure the votes needed to pass the health-care bill as a "harbinger of things to come," Wakabayashi said. "They see it as a lot of opposition to [Trump's] policies. They see general risk on trade and fiscal policy, and a lot of promises we may have to revisit and cross out some of them."

It will take robust monthly employment figures or hawkish guidance from the Fed to stop the dollar's slide, said Masashi Murata, currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in Tokyo.

-- Hiroyuki Kachi contributed to this article.

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 27, 2017 04:58 ET (08:58 GMT)

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