The dollar edged back towards last week's record troughs versus the euro today as investors saw little reason to change their bearish view on the US economy or expectations of more Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.
Players remain on edge about more fallout from the credit crunch as the year-end approaches and potentially forces investors to dump assets or scramble for cash to get their books in order as banks and funds grapple with the market strains.
"Markets are coming in this morning with yet again a dollar negative tone," said Jeremy Stretch, strategist at Rabobank.
"It doesn't seem to take an awful lot of an excuse to sell dollars in the current environment, despite the fact that equity futures are trading higher and there's seemingly some anecdotal evidence that US consumers were flocking to the shops on the Friday post-Thanksgiving."
By 08:09am, the euro was up 0.16 per cent at $1.4858, edging back towards an all-time high of $1.4966 set on Friday.
A growing number of analysts reckon the pair could breach the psychologically key $1.50 level this year.
The yen edged away from a 2-1/2-year peak against the dollar as stronger equity markets spurred some market players to tiptoe back into carry trades, which involve borrowing the low-yielding Japanese currency to buy higher-yielding currencies.
The dollar edged up 0.1 per cent from late last week to 108.46 yen after having slid as far as 107.53 yen on Friday, the lowest since June 2005.