The dollar traded near a record low against the euro
after American Express Co. said profit dropped because more consumers
defaulted on loans, raising concern the U.S. economic slowdown will
deepen.
The currency also slid against the yen before reports this week
forecast by economists to show that U.S. home sales and durable-goods
orders dropped in June. The yen rebounded from a near record-low
against the euro.
``The numbers out of the U.S. are still pretty grim and there's no
immediate prospect that things are going to get better,'' said Daragh
Maher, a London-based currency strategist at Calyon, the
investment-banking arm of Credit Agricole SA, France's second-biggest
lender. ``This has been driving the dollar lower.''
American Express, the biggest U.S. credit-card company by purchases,
said yesterday second-quarter profit fell 37 percent on bad consumer
loans, as the housing market slumped and economic growth slowed.
``Traders will look for opportunities to sell the dollar,'' said
Tsutomu Soma, a bond and currency dealer at Okasan Securities Co. in
Tokyo. ``The housing market and corporate earnings show that the U.S.
economy's fundamentals are weak.''
``If the rally in financials continues, we could see some near-term
support for the dollar against the yen,'' analysts led by Hans-Guenter
Redeker, the London-based global head of currency strategy at BNP
Paribas SA, France's biggest bank, wrote in a research note yesterday.