CURRENCIES The US dollar suffered a severe sell-off on Friday, taking it to its weakest level against a trade-weighted basket of currencies since October 1997, in a tumble that helped to trigger falls across world equity markets.
Worries about US inflation, which have intensified since the US Federal Reserve’s rate-setting open market committee met on Wednesday, sparked further sharp losses for US stock markets. The Nasdaq Composite fell a further 1.3 per cent after a 2 per cent fall on Thursday, while the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was down more than 5 per cent for the week.
