Sterling and the Australian dollar both fell last week on soft trade data, and Canada followed suit on Tuesday.
But the greenback is a law unto itself, and when news came through that the US trade gap had widened to a record level, the dollar promptly rose.
The October deficit soared to $55.5bn in October, $2.5bn worse than forecast, from $50.9bn in September. High oil prices were a factor, but even stripping out petroleum products US imports are growing far faster than exports. Logically the data should have heightened fears over the ability of the US to fund its external deficit, thus putting pressure on the dollar.
But instead the greenback strengthened 0.2 per cent to $1.3271 against the euro, 0.1 per cent to $1.9230 against sterling and 0.9 per cent to Y105.73 against against a weak yen./www.news.ft.com/