Most of the news today seems to involve currency and other nations, with the dollar rising against all major currencies, particularly the British Pound, which fell to its lowest level since 1985.

Considering the fact that the U.K. jobless rate and budget deficit has grown significantly, this should be no surprise.

On the other side of Europe, Russia is pulling back from Ruble support, engaging in what is called a “dirty” float, because they are burning through their currency reserves.

Meanwhile, S&P cut Portugal’s debt rating 1 step, from AA- to A+.

If you want to know the effect of this, you need only look at Greece, where the the rates that they have to pay on their bonds jumped following a similar downgrade. The spread over similar German debt went from 55 basis points (0.55%) to 325.1 basis points (3.251%).

In US real estate, the NAR index of builder confidence fell to 8, below the prediction of 9, with 50 being neutral. (!)

In energy, Oil is up.