Confidence In Dollar Erodes

The ailing dollar plunged Tuesday to all-time lows against the German mark and the Japanese yen in a global sell-off that pointed to a fracturing faith in the U.S. currency.

The mark, which has become the preferred safe-haven currency, soared to postwar highs against the British pound, French franc, Spanish peseta, Portuguese escudo and Swedish krona.

The dollar fell as low as 1.3600 marks in New York - below the previous nadir of 1.3870 set in September 1992 - before recovering in late trading to 1.3702. That was down nearly 3 pfennigs from 1.4048 late Monday. The U.S. currency has declined more than 6 percent vs. the mark in the past week.

Canada .7035 1.4215 France .2050 4.8790 Germany .7299 1.3700 Great Britain 1.6440 .6083 Japan .011074 90.30