Thursday, October 07, 2010

Offsetting Effect With Cause?

Alcoa is projected to post a decline in profits, something Bloomberg News explains with "a weaker dollar raised costs in Europe, Australia and Brazil, offsetting an increase in the price of the metal".

But as it happens, the weak dollar is the key cause of the increase in the dollar price of aluminum. So it would be more accurate to say that the price of aluminum was basically unchanged in terms of the currencies of producer countries.