Wednesday, May 18, 2011

U.S. Dollar Index Components & Swings

By Barry Ritholtz

We’ve posted a few items about the dollar recently (See this and this). the recent counter-trend strength in the buck is what has roiled commodity markets as well as equities.

Today’s NYT has an article that on a possible greenback rally, Some See Rise Ahead for Dollar:
“Could the long dollar slide be over?
For the better part of the past decade, and particularly in the last few months, the American dollar has been the 98-pound weakling of the foreign exchange world. It has lost value against almost every other global currency — not just the euro, pound and yen but even the Romanian new leu and the Latvian lats.
Driven largely by the Federal Reserve’s policy of printing dollars to help spur a healthy economic recovery that remains stubbornly elusive, the dollar, weighed against a basket of other currencies, hit a 40-year low this month.
But betting against the dollar may no longer be such a safe play — not necessarily because of any sudden macroeconomic shifts but because of a sense that the long dollar sell-off may have finally gone too far. Since May 4, the dollar is up 4 percent against the euro and 2 percent against the pound, while rallying against the Romanian and Latvian currencies as well.
In light of the article, let’s take another look at a few Dollar charts:
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US Dollar Swings

click for larger charts

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Dollar vs Major Currencies



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