This is drumming up fears that the damage to the economy from Hurricane Katrina will be exacerbated by Rita. Before concerns over Rita, the short-term fundamentals were positive for the dollar. |
This last week has been dominated by events outside the U.S. and these events have been broadly dollar-negative. |
Those two pieces of data will help shape future Fed policy, and both were on the soft side. The market was looking for any reason to sell dollars and they had two. |
Until you get ... the Bank of Japan actually pushing interest rates (higher) and not just jawboning the financial markets, I don't think the yen is going to find long-lasting support. |
We still have widening interest rate spreads ... so the dollar looks good and today's data at the margin just keeps inflationary concerns bubbling. |
We're still very optimistic with respect to the outlook for the U.S. economy in the coming quarters. Interest-rate spreads are probably going to start becoming more dollar positive. |