* Graphic: World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E
* Commodity price gains lift exporters' currencies
* Dollar bides time before U.S. CPI and Fed speakers
* Sterling continues stellar run as coronavirus risks fade
By Stanley White and Tom Westbrook
TOKYO/SINGAPORE, May 11 (Reuters) - The dollar hovered near
multi-month lows on Tuesday with lofty commodity prices lending
support to exporters' currencies, though caution about U.S.
inflation bringing forward rate rises kept the greenback from
sliding.
The resource-sensitive Australian dollar AUD=D3 sat by
Monday's two-month high and was steady around $0.7831. The
similarly exposed Canadian currency CAD=D3 , which hit an
almost four-year high on Monday, held at C$1.2096 per dollar.
The New Zealand dollar traded near its highest since February.
Sterling GBP=D3 was also perched near its highest since
March on the dollar and strongest since early April on the euro
EURGBP= , as investors cheered forthcoming lockdown easing and
receding risks of another Scottish independence referendum.
However further moves were kept in check by looming U.S.
consumer price figures due on Wednesday, as traders worry that a
big number might prompt the Fed to wind back monetary policy
support sooner than expected.
Appearances later on Tuesday from U.S. Federal Reserve
members John Williams, at 1430 GMT, and Lael Brainard, at 1600
GMT, will be parsed for clues as to central bank thinking.
The euro EUR=EBS was broadly steady at $1.2142 after
hitting a two-month top on Monday and the yen JPY=EBS held at
108.81 per dollar.
The South Korean won KRW= and Taiwan dollar TWD= fell,
however, along with declines in their tech-heavy stock markets
and a broader selloff in growth stocks on Wall Street and in
Asia on inflation concerns. MKTS/GLOB
"There are a lot of cross currents," said Bank of Singapore
currency analyst Moh Siong Sim, as surging commodity prices on
one hand lift commodity currencies and on the other add to the
inflationary pressure that has got risk assets jittery.
"The big question is whether the Fed can be comfortable
staying dovish," he said. "If inflation rises more than the Fed
expects...what happens to the Fed then?"
FED TEST
Markets expect U.S. year-on-year inflation to hit 3.6% in
April, juiced by the base effect of a pandemic year contraction.
But investors seem increasingly at odds with policymakers
over whether that sort of price growth will persist, and drove
up U.S. five-year breakevens - a measure of inflation
expectations - to a decade-high 2.717% on Monday. US/
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has shown every sign of staying
patient on policy, even if the economy runs hot. However Dallas
Fed President Robert Kaplan caused a stir last month by calling
for beginning to talk about tapering, and there are growing
signs that prices could keep rising at a clip if unchecked.
The sharpest rise in China's factory gate prices in more
than three years is the latest signal that soaring commodity
costs are headed down the supply chain to end consumers.
China's producer price index in April rose 6.8% from a year
earlier, official data showed, ahead of a 6.5% rise tipped by a
Reuters poll of analysts. Even more pressure is still to come as the full implications
of a global chip shortage work their way through production
lines, said Iris Pang, chief China economist at ING.
"Even bags that do not have a chip in them, use chips in the
process of production," she said. "This chip inflation may be
passed on to consumers and result in a faster CPI growth rate if
the chip shortage persists."
Profit taking pulled copper and lumber from record peaks,
but iron ore has continued to forge ahead and currencies linked
to the booming prices mostly hung on to gains. The Canadian
dollar is within striking distance of a six-year peak and copper
exporter Chile's peso CLP= held near its best since 2019.
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