Friday, August 08, 2008
All good today: Dollar strengthens, oil declines again
Financially, at least, Americans are heading into the weekend on an upswing.
The business news from Europe and Asia is pretty good this morning. The dollar has strengthened against the Euro to a few cents over $1.51 (down from $1.60 in the spring), and light, sweet crude is down to $119 (Brent North Sea is around $117.50). These trends tend to be mutually reinforcing, and both are in the right direction (as far as I am concerned). Indeed, today's two-cent move in the dollar (vs. Euro) is so strong one is forced to wonder whether the Euro's peak value on April 22 was the long-term high water mark for that currency.
Of course, my three co-bloggers all know more about the financial markets than I do, so I stand girded for contradiction.
MORE (10:45 a.m.): Hey, the traders agree with me! The Euro has fallen by another $0.015 since I posted (to around $1.50 per), and the know-it-alls are saying that it has broken through a critical technical floor.
2 Comments:
By 
Cardinalpark, at
Fri Aug 08, 01:20:00 PM:
feels like the euro and oil have seen their highs. the fed stopped cutting. M2 growth is at around 1pc over the last 3 months. presuming the fed can hold steady or move rates up, or europe moves them down, you could begin to see more dollar strength. elections will impact that too...
By 
, at
Fri Aug 08, 09:26:00 PM:
Oil ended at $115.20, a drop of $30 or more than 20% in several weeks. When you consider that not so many years ago oil was trading at $30, and now it falls $30 in several weeks, that is definitely volatility.
