Obama Knocks Dollar for Six

The dollar fell dramatically against the YEN earlier today after President Obama introduced plans to control risk-taking by various financial institutions. His statements included measures to prevent banks from sponsoring, owning or investing in hedge funds for their own profits.

The market perceived the President’s speech as unfavorable for bank profitability. As such, the USDYEN plunged today by almost 190 pips in under an hour and presently posts 90.45.

The Euro pulled back some ground as well against the dollar but not on such an impressive scale. Greece’s fiscal situation is weighing heavily on the Euro as the country’s borrowing costs on its huge public debt have soared in the last couple of days. The EURUSD managed to bounce to highs of 1.4140 before retracting to its current 1.4090.

The market has two major concerns at the moment. The first is a potential credit collapse in China whilst the second is the continuation of Greece’s financial deterioration.