What happened this week: Well, it was another week where one could basically copy the previous week’s report. The US$ continued its descent and is now nudging towards the next magic figure of 1.30 against the euro. And although everybody is now starting to discuss the possible effects of this, there is still not much concern thanks to the comfortable sales position for raw materials around the globe.

The trade weighted index of the US$ has lost more than 5% over the past few weeks and this will eventually affect global trade, and revenues in local currencies in many countries. As a result the rising concerns about future economic developments are starting to come to the foreground in discussions. Consequently the hide business was not really the focus of interest this week. There was not much trading and while the optimists say that this is due to the shortage of promptly available hides, the pessimists say that this is the beginning of the slow down which has been expected for a fairly long time now.

As far we are concerned both are right. On the one hand, the volumes to be able to test what would really happen if somebody put significant quantities into the market are not available, and it is also true that the buoyant demand of the past months - in particular from Asia –is no longer being seen.

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