US assets, especially the dollar, will suffer today following the impeachment of the US President, Mr Clinton, but a major sell-off on global markets was not in store, analysts said.

The House of Representatives impeached President Clinton on Saturday, setting the stage for only the second Senate trial in US history to determine if a president should be removed from office.

The news will weigh on the dollar but will be only a mild negative for shares and US treasuries, analysts said.

"The dollar will be down slightly and the US stock market will take a marginal knockback, which doesn't help markets elsewhere," said Gerard Lyons, chief economist at DKB International in London. "But the impact won't be great."

Shares in Europe are likely to take account of the reaction on Wall Street, analysts said.

The news from Congress, combined with Saturday's announcement of an end to joint US-British strikes on Iraq, will give the markets plenty to digest.

But analysts stressed that reaction will be limited, especially given the muted response from markets to the military actions last week.

"Nothing that has happened has been a surprise," said David Kern, group chief economist at National Westminster Bank in London. "What the markets are afraid of is a drawn-out trial in the Senate."

A protracted trial would create fears about the ability of US policy-makers to deal with economic trouble spots such as Brazil. "It will create a lot of domestic uncertainty and will take away the attention Clinton can pay to organising concerted reaction to Brazil or Russia," said Kirit Shah, chief strategist at Sanwa in London.

Shah said he thought the dollar could sink to as low as 112 yen in coming days, from its current 116.

"This creates an unsettled medium-term atmosphere for US assets, which is a negative," he said.

Trading in markets has been thin in recent days, due to the desire of banks to keep out of trouble in the run-up to the launch of the euro.