By Cornelius Luca
New York, July 9 (BridgeNews) - The U.S. dollar is seen treading water in a typical Monday session due a lack of trading factors. U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill attempted to add interest to the bland Group of Seven meeting in Rome by saying that the soft U.S. growth is well-placed for an imminent recovery. But a leading group of business economists predicted Monday that the U.S. economy will grow at an anemic rate of about 1-2% in the second half, not much better than the slow pace seen in the first half of the year.
Euro/dollar and sterling/dollar slipped from six-day highs of 0.8502 and 1.4217, respectively, dollar/Swiss franc bounced from an 11-day low of 1.7886, while dollar/yen swerved quietly, mostly within a 30-pip range in Europe, after slipping in Asia to a four-day low of 125.41. Dollar/Canada countered its Friday's gains to a one-week high of 1.5233 with a decline on profit taking that dragged it back below the 20-day moving average. This week's event agenda will only come to life on Friday, when the release of the June retail sales will be augmented by the June producer price index and the University of Michigan consumer confidence survey for early July. In the absence of data on Monday, dollar/yen and euro/dollar should see mild weakness in two-way activity.

Current Previous Change Global Global
NY open NY close low high

USD/JPY 125.54 125.85 -0.31 125.41 125.98
EUR/USD 0.8455 0.8477 -0.0022 0.8446 0.8502
EUR/JPY 106.16 106.60 -0.44 106.00 106.71
GBP/USD 1.4058 1.4108 -0.0050 1.4056 1.4127
USD/CHF 1.7975 1.7930 0.0045 1.7886 1.7995
USD/CAD 1.5177 1.5228 -0.0051 1.5179 1.5228
AUD/USD 0.5052 0.5080 -0.0028 0.5050 0.5088
NZD/USD 0.4033 0.4050 -0.0017 0.4037 0.4064
SP.1 1196.80 3.00 1188.80 1201.40
ND.1 1694.50 11.00 1663.50 1697.00