Dollar falls to 2009 low; gold prices soar

The dollar, on track for its biggest weekly fall in two months, took the brunt of growing worries about the US fiscal outlook after Standard & Poor?s on Thursday said it might cut Britain?s AAA credit rating because of soaring public debt. Oil slipped below $61 a barrel on credit worries related to the United States, the world?s top energy consumer, but losses were limited by data suggesting Chinese oil demand jumped 3.9 percent in April. Yet US stocks rose as investors snapped up shares of multinationals, including McDonald?s Corp., in anticipation a weaker dollar would underpin profitability from abroad. A leading index of European shares ended lower for a second day in a row even as benchmark indexes in Britain, Germany and France ended higher. Gold prices climbed to a fresh two-month high, breaching $960 an ounce for the first time since late March, as the dollar?s slide boosted buying of bullion as a currency hedge. ?The general theme today is clearly broad-based US dollar weakness, largely triggered by mounting concerns over the US government debt triple-A rating,? said Omer Esiner, senior market analyst at Travelex Global Business Payments in Washington. Shares of energy companies on both sides of the Atlantic rose, helping boost the broader US and UK equity markets on bets that overseas demand would support energy prices; Kazinform cites the Arab News. See www.arabnews.com for full version