German business confidence lifts euro
After gaining unexpectedly yesterday against the euro, dollar once again fell again after a rise in German business confidence. Megan Williams reports why certain economic factors in Germany made the report unexpected.
Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Martin Oeser/AFP/Getty Images)
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Doug Krizner: In the currency markets, the euro is getting a lift. It dipped slightly against the dollar yesterday But as Megan Williams reports, some news from Germany has it back on track.
Megan Williams: The euro got its first dint in a long time yesterday. The dollar rose by 1.5 percent -- the most in two years. But the gain disappeared today after a German survey showed, against expectation, that business confidence in the country rose for the third month in a row.
The results were especially surprising since Germany's faced a 17 percent euro hike in the last year and record-high oil prices.
Tobias Pillar of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says German exports have survived the drop in the dollar with products that China can't copy cheaply. Things like luxury cars and high-tech machinery.
Tobias Pillar: You can even charge higher prices if the dollar has gone down, and dollar customers quite are prepared to pay up for the quality.
High demand for the products in emerging markets like Russia, China and India has also helped.
I'm Megan Williams for Marketplace.
