More bad news. I use the Rex personal digital organiser (PCMCIA card format, w/ touch screen, sychs with MS Outlook). Intel just announced that they will phase out the product, shut down the Rex Link website, and my New Ec "utility" just went to CB's money heaven.
Here is some good news, for Germany ...
news.ft.com
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Good news in eurozone gives euro chance to break old habits
By Christopher Swann in London
Published: August 22 2001 17:39GMT | Last Updated: August 22 2001 17:45GMT
The euro on Wednesday appeared to be trying to shake off the habit of its rather brief lifetime. Unusually, it strengthened against the dollar not because of bad news in the US, but because of good news in the eurozone.
The news that Germany's closely-watched Ifo index of industrial confidence had registered an unexpected rise sent the euro more than a cent higher against the dollar to a fresh five-month high.
Although the index is still consistent with a contraction of German industry, the figure at least offers some hope that the worst may already have passed.
"The market simply is not used to good news from the eurozone economy," says Kamal Sharma, currency strategist at Commerzbank. "It at least offers some hope that the euro may be able to rise on its own merits rather than simply relying on bad news from the US."
Positive eurozone data may now become a more common feature of the foreign exchange market, some analysts think.
"There is usually a lag of about six months between trends in US industry and trends in Germany," says Adrian Schmidt, senior analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland.
"Since US manufacturers appeared to hit the bottom about six months ago, it is not too much to expect that Germany may now start to bump along the bottom too. At least things are not likely to get much worse."
That said, the hope of better economic news may not be enough to offset an underlying scepticism about the euro.
So far the euro has mainly risen by default, says Marc Chandler, chief currency strategist at HSBC in New York.
"Over the past few weeks, the main thing to recommend the euro has been that it is not the dollar," he says. "There are still concerns about the pace of structural reform in Europe, a prevailing mistrust of the European Central Bank and a memory of all the promising but abortive rallies in the euro itself."
Barely moments after Wednesday's positive Ifo release, traders started to speculate that the figure might encourage the ECB to further defer cuts in eurozone interest rates.
"There is a fear that good figures will simply encourage the ECB to keep rates too high to give economic growth a chance," says Ray Attrill, director of research at the economic consultancy 4Cast. "The contrast between ECB stubborness and the flexibility of the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England has become increasingly clear."
As a result, most euro-enthusiasts continue to pin their hopes on further problems for the dollar.
The US currency has seldom looked more vulnerable. Its Achilles heel is the bloated US current account deficit, which continues to run at about $30bn a month. This means that the US needs to attract about $1bn every day from overseas just to keep the dollar at its current rate.
While this was never a problem when the US was growing strongly, it is proving much more challenging during a period of sluggish growth.
"Inflows into the US have been slowing significantly, from foreign direct investment and portfolio flows," says Derek Halpenny, currency analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. "This is going to make it hard going for the dollar over the next six months.
So if the euro's recent rally does persist, it is once again more likely to be driven by bad news in the US than good news in the eurozone.
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Chugs, Jay |
