Consumer confidence, oil prices hit dollar

Story link: Consumer confidence, oil prices hit dollar

The US dollar was weaker versus the euro and the yen on Friday on a decline in US consumer confidence and another spike in crude oil prices.

The Reuters/University of Michigan survey on consumer confidence was at 59.5 in May, down from 62.6 in April, the lowest it has been in nearly 28 years.

Meanwhile, crude oil prices in New York spiked to a new record at $127.82 per barrel.

At shortly after noon in New York, the dollar was trading at $1.5588 to the euro and it took ¥103.8950 to buy a dollar.

The euro, which was at ¥161.9566, was helped out by new comments on inflation by ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet which tended to indicate that there will be no interest rate cuts in the Eurozone anytime soon.

The South African rand, which was stronger on demand for high-yielding currencies, traded at R7.4705 to the greenback while it took ¥13.904 to buy a rand.

The Icelandic krona, meanwhile, saw gains after Denmark, Sweden and Norway pledged a total of €1.5 billion ($2.2 billion) in emergency aid to Iceland’s banks after last month’s credit rating cut for the country by Standard & Poor’s due to trouble for the banks related to the credit crisis.

In early afternoon trade in New York the krona was at kr116.18 to the euro and at kr74.05 to the US dollar.