Dollar Continues Fall Despite Effort to Shore Up Value

Money dealers worldwide showed little faith in the dollar today, despite key interest-rate cuts by West Germany and Switzerland and pledges of renewed economic cooperation between Japan and the United States.

Traders on the Tokyo currency exchange market slashed the dollar’s value minutes after Japanese Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa and Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III promised to work together on the plummeting dollar and the trade imbalance.

By day’s end in Japan, the dollar bought 152.40 yen, down 1.20 from Wednesday’s close. A greenback now buys about half what it did in September, 1985.

In West Germany, the central Bundesbank cut the discount rate by a half percentage point, to 3%. Switzerland cut its discount rate from 4% to 3.5%.

At the Frankfurt exchange today, the dollar sold for 1.8230 marks. It bought 3.4 marks just 18 months ago.