Galery

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Registered this week was a sudden increase of the US Dollar and this negatively affected the global stock indexes. Dow Jones closed with a drop of about 3% or 9689.3 points. Nasdaq also registered a fall of 5.7% and closed the week with 2040.9 points. S&P 500 closed the week with 1033.5 points. In London thigns were not that much better – the FTSE 100 closed the week with a drop of 3.6% or 5051.8 points. Nikkei followed the example of the other indexes and lost 2.4% and closed the week with 10029 points.

This week the economic team of the newly elected Greek government will present a plan for burning the budget deficit from 12.5% to 9.5% next year and then gradually lowering it to 3% until 2013. This will be accomplished with higher taxes for the wealthy and higher taxes over the real estate properties of offshore companies. It is expected that from January 1, 2010 taxes over alcohol, petrol and cigarettes will also increase.

Rating company Moody’s warned Greece that expected are falls in the country’s credit rating, because the necessary changes in the publish sectors are being delayed. One reason for this is the fact that the forecast about the budget deficit is already 12.5% - more than three times bigger than the forecast given by the government to the European Union a year ago. The other big credit rating company Fitch already lowered Greece’s credit rating.

Other news – petrol price fell with nearly 3% for the past week, due to the strong dollar and the doubts about the economic improvement. The price of crude oil closed at $78.47 in the New York stock exchange. The British Pound also increased compared to the Euro. The European Central Bank bought the British Pound for €1.11.