This column demonstrates that the US dollar differs from that of traditional safe-haven currencies such as the yen and Swiss franc. There are tentative signs that the dollar has increasingly diverged from the behaviour of traditional safe-haven currencies in recent years. Episodes of funding stress have triggered global dollar shortages, contributing to dollar appreciation (Jiang et al. Figure 1 The safe-haven and funding stress factorsNote: Positive values indicate funding stress and safe-haven flows (risk-off). A safe-haven shock strengthens the dollar temporarily, while the dollar weakens against classical safe-haven currencies.