Foreign Exchange for Tuesday, Dec. 24, 1985 : Dollar Falls Slightly in Quiet Trading

The dollar fell slightly against most major currencies in desultory Christmas Eve trading Tuesday. Gold was slightly higher.

“It was a non-day,” said Gordon Beals, an analyst at Prudential-Bache Securities, a New York investment firm. “It didn’t give anybody any insight as to what’s going to happen in the future.”

The reason, he said, was that trading volume was extremely light, because of the Christmas holiday. In New York and Europe, markets closed around midday.

In Europe, dealers attributed a slight increase in the dollar to last-minute buying by investors who did not want to be caught short of the U.S. currency over the holiday.

In Tokyo, where trading ends as Europe’s business day begins, the dollar closed at 203.00 Japanese yen, up from 202.80 yen on Monday.

Later in London, the dollar was quoted at 202.85 yen. In the United States, the dollar edged up to 202.68 from Monday’s level of 202.65.