Monday, November 17, 2008

Euro Declines Further

The euro declined against the dollar, the pound still in trouble
By aslanbash


Finance Information City
The euro fell against the dollar Friday after confirmation of the recession in the euro zone, while the pound sterling was changing to new records of weakness facing the single currency.


Towards 22H00 GMT (23H00 Paris), the euro bought 1.2591 dollars against 1.2779 the previous day.


It also address the declining yen at 122.24 yen against 124.84 the previous day.


The dollar fell face the yen to 97.06 yen against 97.67 Thursday evening.



The single currency has been weighed down by the confirmation of what economists feared the euro area went into recession for the first time since its inception in 1999, with a decline of 0.2% of its Gross Domestic Product in the third quarter the previous report.

"Preliminary data available for the fourth quarter suggest that the contraction of the economy is growing," warned economists at High Frequency Economics.

At the same time, inflation slowed to its lowest level for nine months in October, opening the door to future rate cuts in the euro area.

Zach Witton, Moody's Economy.com, the European Central Bank should cut interest rates by 0.5 percentage points to 2.75% in December.

The traders also tried to anticipate the consequences for the currency markets of the G20 summit.

"The expectation by the markets of major announcements should continue to draw the frame of the next meetings," said Daragh Maher, Calyon.

"Nothing surprising is anticipated G20," he qualified, however, and "the dollar and the yen should remain on an upward slope even if temporary setbacks can be violent due to volatililité always at work market. "

From the U.S. side, the indicators have confirmed the fuel of consumer retail sales in October were the strongest decline since the launch of this index in 1992.

The pound sterling stood at weak levels seen over the past six years against the dollar, after touching the day before at a lower dollar for 1.4557 a pound, and the highest against the euro after a more low at 1.1545 euro for a book.

The British currency rose against the euro at 85.39 pence, but fell against the dollar to dollar for 1.4733 a pound.

The Swiss currency has regained ground against the euro at 1.5081 Swiss francs to one euro but fell against the dollar to 1.1976 Swiss francs to the dollar.

The Chinese yuan closed at 6.8250 yuan to one U.S. dollar against 6.8298 yuan on Thursday.


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Courtesy: Online Currency Broker | forex-rates.info

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Pound Falls

Sterling continues to decline against the dollar and other major currencies
Saturday 15th November 2008



As sterling continues to fall in the foreign exchange markets there is real concern with the rate against the dollar down to $1.4715 and down to 84.7p against the Euro. There is real fear that sterling could yet fall further with interest rates likely to decline in the short term (Gordon Brown recently asked for a substantial cut) and the economy set to move into recession over the next few months.


The problem which the currency presents the government is the fact that imports, especially against the dollar, are very very expensive when you consider the rate has fallen back from over two dollars to the pound. This is the issue which many economists believe will force the UK into something of a major recession and possible depression with deflation coming to the head of the table. This would be a worse case scenario and literally see the UK economy collapse in a cloud of doom and gloom.


We recently saw major UK retailer Next Group announce that clothing was likely to rise in cost in the short term because of the currency exchange rate and the increased cost of goods from American. This has the potential to cause major upset with the UK economy although the government is in no situation to increase interest rates to protect the exchange rate which offers something of a quandary.


Courtesy: Punds - Euros - Dollars | financialadvice.co.uk