The U.S. Dollar gained against major currencies today, rising as concerns about the extent of the breadth of the global recession on investors’ sentiment. Increased concern about risk helped push shares in Europe into negative territory, however, while low-yielding Japanese Yen surged against major currencies.
Inflation in the Euro zone fell significantly and as a result the European Central Bank now has room to reduce interest rates aggressively from 3.25%, the current benchmark. Preliminary data showed that the Euro zone annual inflation rate plunged to 2.1% during November from the October rate of 3.2%.
On November 28, 2008 at 11:19 GMT, the U.S. Dollar was up by 0.1% against a group of six major currencies and traded at 85.870 .DXY; in the meantime, the Euro fell by 0.4% to $1.2834. Against the Japanese Yen, the Euro dropped 0.7% to 122.22 Yen while the U.S. Dollar dipped by 0.1% against the Japanese Yen to 95.21 Yen.
Trading today was very light due to the Thanksgiving holiday yesterday in the United States, and most traders have made it a long weekend. It is expected that trading on Monday will be very brisk.