The U.S. dollar dropped versus the euro and other major currencies. The Euro reached $1.3735 on Wednesday; up from $1.3608 in North American trade late Tuesday.

The market was deeply affected by Greece outlining its tax changes and budget cuts in an attempt to reduce its deficit, easing concerns about a debt-fueled crisis and reducing the relative appeal of the U.S. currency.

Relief about Greece's outlook, as well as reasonably good economic data out of the U.S., reduced the appeal of the greenback as a relatively safe investment.

The dollar regained some ground on Friday after a report showed U.S. real gross domestic product increased at a 5.9% seasonally adjusted annualized pace in the final three months of 2009, revised up from 5.7% estimated last month.

The U.S. economy grew slightly faster than previously reported in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department estimated Friday, but details of the revision to gross domestic product show final sales in the United States were actually weaker than reported a month ago.

<div style="margin: 1ex;"><div><img src="http://www.learning-forex.com/uploads/articles/cc259f06.jpg" align="left" alt="" border="0" height="265" hspace="" vspace="" width="400"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In trying to reach the moon, the US government wants to oversee the bank system in a way that would check for the kind of systemic problems that froze the credit markets in late 2008 and nearly ruined the financial industry in America.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The New York Times </font><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/business/18regulate.html?hp" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">reports </font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“The Senate and the Obama administration are nearing agreement on forming a council of regulators, led by the Treasury secretary, to identify systemic risk to the nation’s financial system.”</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">It has yet to be&nbsp;determined how the newly formed group would differentiate between risks which is “local” and that which could disrupt the entire financial system. The government’s plan&nbsp;is to&nbsp;keep an especially sharp eye on the major money center banks&nbsp;such as&nbsp;Bank of America, Citigroup, investment banks&nbsp;including&nbsp;Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">That may work to some extent if the new council tracks the proprietary trades and creation of derivatives, but it still raises the question of&nbsp;what kind of trading and leveraged instruments are dangerous and which are not.</font></p><hr> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> Not all derivatives produce unpredictable investment results. Forecasting which ones will; is difficult.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The S&amp;L crisis of the 1980s and South American sovereign debt crisis of the 1970s were due to risks that fell outside trading and derivatives. It was nearly impossible to predict that Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico could threaten to default on their debt the same way that it would have been improbable that US regulators could have forecast the&nbsp;sovereign debt problems in Greece two years ago. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In other words, systemic risk often sits well outside the&nbsp;purview and anticipation US federal regulators. The next systemic crisis in the financial and credit markets may be from an inability&nbsp;of Greece or Dubai to pay their debt obligations.</font></p> </div> </div><br>