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Strategies & Market Trends : The coming US dollar crisis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Box-By-The-Riviera™ who wrote (10690)	8/25/2008 9:49:04 PM
From: Secret_Agent_Man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71456

Zutor in the zeta quadrant

To: Box-By-The-Riviera™ who wrote (10690)	8/26/2008 2:43:26 AM
From: ggersh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71456

Type B personality.....GOOFY

To: Box-By-The-Riviera™ who wrote (10690)	8/26/2008 5:36:25 AM
From: RockyBalboa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71456

Unbelievable. Quite the smackdown. --------------------------------------------- 2nd UPDATE: German Ifo Business Climate Plummets In August Tue, Aug 26 2008, 09:24 GMT djnewswires.com 2nd UPDATE: German Ifo Business Climate Plummets In August (Adds analyst comment, detail.) By Nina Koeppen Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)--German business confidence plummeted in August, hitting its lowest level in three years, a survey from the German Ifo Institute showed Tuesday, raising fears that Germany is already in recession. The Ifo business climate index fell to 94.8 from 97.5 in July, well below economists' forecasts of 97.1. The drop came despite lower oil prices and a weaker euro. The euro hit a fresh six-month low, while German government bonds got a fillip following the weak data. At 0914 GMT, the euro traded at $1.4592, according to EBS, from $1.4754 late Monday in New York. September bunds, which were trading around 114.53 prior to the data rose to 114.77 at 0915 GMT. "The German economy is further descending into the maelstrom of economic troubles," said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING Bank. The probability that Europe's largest economy is already in a technical recession, experiencing its second straight quarter of economic contraction, is now 70%, said Andrea Rees, UniCredit SpA's chief German economist. The roughly 7,000 companies participating in the Ifo poll became gloomier both about their current business situation and their trading outlook. The index measuring firms' business expectations hit its lowest level since February 1993, when Germany was mired in recession, after falling to 87.0 from a revised 89.9. The indicator for the current trading situation fell to 103.2 from a revised 105.6 in July. The data come hot on the heels of a weak German consumer confidence survey that shows sentiment at a five-year low. German market research group GfK said earlier Tuesday that its forward-looking consumer climate index fell to 1.5 points for September from a revised 1.9 points in August. Ifo said the climate in manufacturing cooled off further, as companies expect "weaker support from export business." German retailers were also more pessimistic on their trading outlook this month than in July. A weakening economic outlook across the euro zone is likely to keep the European Central Bank sidelined on interest rates until the end of the year. "For the ECB, this means bad news. The next ECB staff projections in September will show a significant downward revision of the growth outlook for the euro zone, officially acknowledging that the sound economic fundamentals have disappeared," ING's Brzeski said. Most economists expect the ECB to start lowering rates in 2009. Ifo Web site: www.ifo.de -By Nina Koeppen, Dow Jones Newswires; +49 (0)69 2972 5509; nina.koeppen@dowjones.com Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: djnewsplus.com. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day. (END) Dow Jones Newswires August 26, 2008 05:24 ET (09:24 GMT) Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc