U.S. Dollar Up As Investor Safety Options Narrow

The U.S. dollar was up against the majority of major currencies today, as options for places of safety for investors narrow.

At this time the market is ignoring the weak underlying fundamentals of the U.S. dollar, and are focused on other things like the emerging euro-zone sovereign credit issues, along with the interest rate cuts of other nations' currencies, which influence those looking for safety.

Only the Japanese yen, Swiss franc, South Korean won and British pound gained against the greenback today.

Even though interest rate cuts of other currencies have helped shore up the dollar, it's not certain that those will continue, as some officials of the ECB rate-setting Governing Council want to slow rate cuts down.

As far as sovereign credit ratings go, credit ratings from a number of countries are under pressure, and their debt could be downgraded. That's already happened to Greece, as Standard & Poor's dropped them a level, saying the finances of the country are weak.

Other countries that could follow soon are Spain, Portugal and Ireland, according to the S&P. Ratings for the U.S. remain AAA for now.