US focus: US downgrade fuels distrust of US dollar

Today the U.S. dollar significantly dropped as late Wednesday Moody's and Chinese ratings agency Dagong both put the US AAA credit rating on negative watch.

“The fear of the U.S. downgrade has led to a swift move to the safe haven currency,” said Sebastien Galy, a foreign-exchange analyst at Societe Generale in London.

Euro strengthened versus US dollar amid the weakness of the latter. Despite Greece's credit rating was cut three levels by Fitch Ratings from B+ to CCC, any downgrade in the eurozone has increasingly less impact than debt problems in the US.

It should be noted that yesterday Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, raised the possibility of a third bout of quantitative easing – or “QE3”, that the central bank is ready to provide additional economic stimulus if needed.

Japan’s currency, shedding in the beginning of the session against dollar amid speculation the nation will intervene in markets to limit its gains, retreated but declining again.

The Swiss franc reached to record highs against the dollar, euro and the pound amid concerns about credit ratings of U.S and Greece. Today Fitch Ratings has affirmed Switzerland's ratings at 'AAA'. Its outlook remains stable.

New Zealand’s dollar strengthened to a record after a government report showed the economy grew faster than expected. The New Zealand economy has released today its house price index for the month of June which increased 1.3%, compared with a previous drop by 1.8% in May. This fact signaled the nation is recovering from a deadly earthquake in February.

Despite yesterday the yellow metal rallied to a new high around $1,600 per troy ounce and silver approached $40 per troy ounce and today continued theirs rally on fiscal and economic problems in the US, currently the precious metals are slightly above yesterday’s closing price.