The U.S. dollar slid to a 1-year low against the euro on Tuesday near $1.48 as deteriorating sentiment on the U.S. currency encouraged selling ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting and Group of 20 summit this week.

Traders took advantage of a dollar rally in the prior session to sell on views the Fed will signal plans to maintain loose monetary policy well into 2010.

Currency investors are also bracing for G20 leaders to discuss rebalancing the global economy this week, a process that would almost certainly require a weaker dollar.

A document obtained by Reuters showed how Washington would urge G20 leaders to launch a new push this year to get debtor nations like the United States to save more and exporters like China, Germany and Japan to spend more.

“If you take the view that too much of U.S. growth has been domestically driven, the next logical step is to say an

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Euro goes back and forth over 1.43…Eurozone unemployment rises to 9.2%…Australia’s GDP surprises! Is it protectionism? And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! I’m draggin’ the line today, as I was helping my oldest son, Andrew, with things in his brand, spankin’ new house, last night. Congrats to Andrew, for finding a great bargain, with a low, fixed, interest rate!

OK… Whew! What a day in the currencies yesterday! Another day, and another day of wild swings.. Volatility is the name of the game these days… Watching, for instance, the euro trade down to 1.4220, and then up to 1.4320 and not just on a one-way ticket! Oh No! this is a bounce here a bounce there… But just like it was going from 1.41 to 1.42, it took a few times over the 1.42 figure before it finally stuck, and headed to 1.43… All the other

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German exports and investment spending plunged in the first quarter, dragging Europe’s largest economy into its deepest economic slump on record. Exports were down 9.7 percent from the fourth quarter and company investment declined 7.9 percent, according to the Federal Statistics Office. The Office reported that gross domestic product fell a seasonally adjusted 3.8 percent from the previous three months, confirming an initial estimate from May 15. That’s the largest drop since quarterly data were first compiled in 1970. From October to December 2008, the German economy had already contracted by 2.2%, and by 0.5% in each of the the second and third quarters. According to the statistics office, the ...

Industrial Production declines…  Stocks sell off, leading currencies down…  Indian election spurs a rally…  China stockpiles commodities… And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Well… As much as I dislike having to say so, because I told you this might happen… The currencies have given back some major ground VS the dollar since Friday morning. It’s all tied to the fact that the euphoria going around the markets the previous week regarding stocks and the U.S. economy, came to a screeching halt last week. I pleaded and begged for the currencies to break this link to stocks, but it wouldn’t / didn’t happen and voila!

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /span style="font-family:arial;font-size:78%;"/spana href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SgiAR06lzrI/AAAAAAAAN1E/-NbHseEOV1Q/s1600-h/ecb+one.png"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334654802370875058" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 399px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 264px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SgiAR06lzrI/AAAAAAAAN1E/-NbHseEOV1Q/s400/ecb+one.png" border="0" //abr /br /blockquote“The 60 billion euros they announced is peanuts for an economy the size of the euro zone,” economics professor and former Bank of England policy maker Willem Buiter said at a conference in Dublin yesterday. “I expect they will announce more or that the recession in the euro zone will be longer and deeper than would otherwise be necessary. They have a record of being somewhat behind the curve.” /blockquoteblockquoteEuropean car sales dropped 12 percent in April.... Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s registrations dropped by almost one-third to 55,633 even as the German market expanded 19 percent, helped by the government’s 2,500 euro ($3,400) sales bonus .........Spain extended its auto-sales slump with a 46 percent plunge in registrations, the largest among the continent’s ...

div class="body" pBy Claus Vistesen: Copenhagenbr //ppIt is not secret that the author of this space, at times, has been rather critical towards the ECB. The reason has not been so much for its de-facto inability to amend the situation in the sense that this is an inbuilt characteristic of the system, but more so because of the seeming complacency with which ECB policy makers (with notable exceptions) have viewed the crisis./p pHowever, and with the recent rate meeting one is tempted to conclude that the ECB is now seriously committed to considering alternative measures and also, as it were, drastic measures along the lines of its peers at the Fed, the BOE and the BOJ who have all in their distinct way been engaged in QE for quite some time. In the recent print edition, the Economist provides a href="http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13527329"a fine overview ...

It is not secret that the author of this space, at times, has been rather critical towards the ECB. The reason has not been so much for its de-facto inability to amend the situation in the sense that this is an inbuilt characteristic of the system, but more so because of the seeming complacency with which ECB policy makers (with notable exceptions) have viewed the crisis.

However, and with the recent rate meeting one is tempted to conclude that the ECB is now seriously committed to considering alternative measures and also, as it were, drastic measures along the lines of its peers at the Fed, the BOE and the BOJ who have all in their distinct way been engaged in QE for quite some time. In the recent print edition, the Economist provides a fine overview of global central banking in the midst of the current financial crisis; what has

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US GDP falls more than expected…FOMC holds course…Canadian dollar has a great week…Oil helps commodity currencies…And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… Yesterday was a big day in St. Louis as President Obama came to visit on his 100th day in office. I can’t believe it has been 100 days since the inauguration. Time sure does fly! I’m sure Obama and the rest of his administration would like the calendar to move even faster as this recession will likely last through the end of 2009. While the government has thrown trillions of dollars at the markets in an attempt to turn them around, the key ingredient for recessionary cycles to reverse is time. There is now ‘quick fix’ for the problems we are in, and the policies the administration has begun will take time to have an impact on our shrinking economy. Obama said as much in his nationally televised press conference

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By RGE Monitor

A few years back, before this crisis erupted, several economists were concerned about the sustainability of the large global imbalances fueled by the so-called Bretton Woods 2 (BW2) system. These economists recognized the tendency of emerging (export-led) economies to manage their exchange rate systems - the origin of large trade and current account surpluses that, via large foreign reserve accumulation, were financing the mirror of those surpluses, namely the large US trade and current account deficits.

These surpluses, primarily in several exports-led Asian economies, and also in oil producing countries, ballooned to extensive proportions in 2007 and 2008. The purchases of US government bonds by these investors helped keep long-term interest rates low and led many investors to seek out high-yielding investments especially in some emerging markets.

Although we are not (yet) witnessing a US dollar crisis,

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Industrial production in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, dropped for the sixth consecutive month in February as the global recession hit demand for German product, both at home and abroad. Output fell a seasonally adjusted 2.9 percent from January, when it slumped 6.1 percent, the most since data for a reunified Germany began in 1991. From a year earlier, output was down by 20.6 percent.br /br /a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/Sd3cGgsj5cI/AAAAAAAANeY/C0huGfcX930/s1600-h/german+ip.png"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322652339035956674" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 219px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/Sd3cGgsj5cI/AAAAAAAANeY/C0huGfcX930/s400/german+ip.png" border="0" //abr /br /Although the pace of decline was slower than in January, this month’s drop was led by a 4.5 percent slump in production of investment goods, according to the Economy Ministry, and this certainly does not bode well for the future. The rate of decline in manufacturing activity continued to slow in March, although activity in the sector continues to contract at a sharp ...