Safe-Haven Status Withers: Dollar Falls Versus Swiss Franc

03-24-2011 • BusinessInsider.com/

While the world’s attention was glued to Japan recently, another low-yielding currency has made a similar record movement against the US Dollar. The Swiss Franc, also a traditional safe-haven currency, has quietly made its way towards successive new records against the US Dollar. On March 16 (March 17 for Asian markets), the Swissie reached an all-time record of 0.8860 against the greenback. To put things into perspective and to understand why international investors been debunking the status of the US Dollar as the world’s reserve currency, take a look at this long-term chart below. In the early 70’s just as the world switched from the untenable Bretton Woods agreement towards freely floating currencies, it cost about 4 Swiss Francs to buy 1 US Dollar. 40 years later, it only costs 0.9 Swiss Francs to buy 1 US Dollar.