Easter Holiday – U.S. Dollar Remains Relatively Stable

As a result of the long Easter holiday, foreign exchanges in Europe and the U.S. were closed for Good Friday, and the U.S. Dollar did not fluctuate much against major currencies as Asian investors did not fully participate in the absence of major players from the U.S. and Europe.

On

Friday, March 22, 2008 at 05:05 GMT in Tokyo, the U.S. Dollar eased slightly against the Yen and traded at 99.62 yen as compared to 99.45 yen traded in the New York Exchange late Thursday.

A result of a survey in

Philadelphia, PA showed that manufacturing activity was somewhat stronger than earlier predicted.  The manufacturing index was minus 17.4 compared to minus 20.0, predicted by several economists.  While this news somewhat eased investors’ concerns about the state of the U.S. economy, they are convinced that the majority of the companies in the Philadelphia region will experience decline in manufacturing activity

Commodity prices continue to fall, and on the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil futures was down 70 cents to $101.84 and gold fell by $33 to $912.30 an ounce.  The quarterly results from the investment banks in the

U.S. indicate that the sub-prime liquidity crisis may not be over soon and the U.S. Dollar will continue to come under pressure.  According to analysts, under the current conditions, the Japanese yen is likely to outperform most of the major currencies.