Dollar bulls are bewildered amid a sea of setbacks as investorsponder what's left of the rally that had pundits talking of dollarhegemony just months ago.

The U.S. currency slid Thursday toward the lowest closing levelin almost four months against major peers after stagnant retailsales became the latest data to undermine prospects for FederalReserve interest-rate increases. The greenback had climbed ninestraight months through March with the first hike in almost adecade looming. The U.S. currency fell to its lowest level inalmost three months against the euro.

“It is really all about dollar weakness across the board todayas markets are still digesting the U.S. retail-sales data,” saidKeng Goh, a foreign-exchange strategist at Royal Bank of Canada inLondon. While RBC expects the Fed to increase rates in September,“no doubt some of the weakness in the data will probably diminishthat conviction a little bit.”