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Dollar skids to record lows

The US dollar skidded to record lows on Friday on speculation that the US will cut interest rates again as the post G7 dollar sell-off came into full swing.

The greenback fell to a record low against the euro at US$1.4393, according to Interbank foreign-exchange rates from Dow Jones almost US$0.005 below its last record low of US$1.4348, set on Monday.

The US dollar also broke through the C$0.9604 record of modern-era floating exchange rate lows against the Canadian currency, slumping to C$0.9592 on Friday, according to Dow Jones' Interbank rates, its lowest level in 33 years.

The euro bought US$1.4385 in late New York trading, after fetching US$1.4319 on Thursday.

The dollar has soured on the G7 summit's failure to address dollar weakness and on a spate of disappointing economic reports from the US, including a report that showed US orders for durable goods dropped 1.7 percent last month, after an even bigger 5.3 percent plunge in August.

That was the first back-to-back decline in more than a year and took economists by surprise.

The Canadian dollar was just short of US$1.04 in late New York trading. The "loonie" was worth US$1.0392 late in New York.

The Canadian dollar, a commodity-backed currency, first achieved modern-era one-to-one parity with the US dollar on Sept. 20. The US dollar has fallen 17.5 percent against the Canadian loonie this year.

"The fundamentals [behind] that drive appear to be solidly in place and will likely fuel the Canadian dollar higher in 2008," said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at the Bank of New York. "If this continues for another year, there will be growing concerns about the currency's valuation."

In other New York trading, the dollar fell against the British pound to US$2.0521. On Thursday, the British currency bought US$2.0511. The dollar also slid against the Swiss franc, down to 1.1645 Swiss francs from 1.1657.

Meanwhile, the dollar was up against the yen, rising to ?114.22 on Friday compared with ?144.06 on Thursday.
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