Commodity Online WASHINGTON: The US dollar suffered the most against major currencies of the world on Friday, mainly on concerns of slowness in US economic growth.
The greenback dropped for the first time in four days against the euro and was down versus most of its major counterparts. The Australian dollar touched a 24-year high against the greenback as crude oil pushed prices of other commodities up.
The dollar decreased 1% to $1.5594 per euro in New York, from $1.5448 on Thursday. . It earlier broke through $1.56 for the first time since May 1. The US currency dropped 0.7% to 103.96 yen, from 104.74. The euro advanced 0.2% to 162.13 yen, from 161.79 yesterday.
The US currency, which has risen 3% from a record low of $1.6019 against the euro on April 22, is down 0.7% this week, its second straight decline. The yen has fallen 1.8% against the euro, the biggest drop since mid-April. It's down 1% versus the dollar this week.
The correlation coefficient between oil and the euro-dollar exchange rates has been 0.95 for the past year, indicating they have moved in the same direction 95% of the time. The correlation is calculated based on the price changes of oil and the currencies.
Canada's dollar was little changed after touching 99.43 cents per US dollar, the strongest since March 19. The currency has traded near parity with its US counterpart this year after climbing 17% in 2007. Commodities such as oil account for about half of Canada's exports.
The dollar dropped as much as 0.8% to the nine-year low of 1.6409 versus the Brazilian real and fell as much as 1.6% to 5.0131 against the Norwegian krone, the weakest since April 24. Norway is the world's fifth-largest oil producer, while the real has gained 19% in the past 12 months, buoyed by a surge in exports of sugar and iron ore.
Iceland's krona was the best performer against the dollar among emerging-market currencies, increasing 4.6% to 74.32 after the central banks of Denmark, Sweden and Norway pledged as much as 1.5 billion euros in emergency funds. The krona jumped 3.7% to 115.88 per euro. Before today, it had slumped 24% against the euro this year.
The US Dollar Index traded on ICE futures in New York, tracking the dollar against the currencies of six major counterparts, fell 0.8% to 72.792, the lowest since May 1. It dropped to a record of 70.698 on March 17.
