Okay, folks, here’s the chronology of the US dollar (versus the euro) over the last five days…

September 11: Dollar climbs throughout the day, but ends only slightly up at 0.7145.
September 12: Dollar starts a massive two-day slide, dropping from 0.7144 to end at 0.7034.
September 14: Dollar starts falling again, but suddenly shows a sharp correction higher, moving from a low of 0.6919 to a high of 0.7034.
September 15: Dollar swings wildly, but ends only slightly down at 0.7019.
September 16: Dollar oscillates, but is trending higher back above 0.7050

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Here in Vienna, the only english channel I get is CNN, and I can’t tell you how shocked I was yesterday hearing how the Dow plunged more than 500 points on news that Lehman Brothers is no more.

Asian markets fell just as hard, and investors everywhere are panicking.

Here in Europe, though, markets aren’t reacting as sharply today, though still red for the second day straight. The biggest economies with the most ties to US markets, like Germany, the UK, and yes, Austria. Also, Norway is getting hit hard, because oil prices are dropping quickly as fears of depressed demand keep prices below $100.

What really has me worried, though, is the US dollar. Especially since I’m still here in Vienna. This, of course, has commodity-price ramifications as well. The Fed is meeting once again, and we’re in the “perfect storm” that may have Bernanke - who looked like he was on some really good drugs today - cutting rates to try and stop the bleeding.

That’s great, folks… Let’s try to print our way out of this yet again and put more of the burden on taxpayers after we’ve pretty much assumed responsibility to pay for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

I guess I’m a little miffed cause everything is going to cost me more here… at least in Vienna. Once I get to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, I’ll be doing a little better.

So far that is. We’ll see how the currencies move today.

I’ll be crossing into the Czech Republic today, heading for the picturesque Cesky Krumlov and then on to Prague. I’ll chat with you then, and let you know how much my dinner cost!

Over the past several months, the investment world has turned its ever-roving eye on the Middle East and North Africa.

Since July, four new exchange traded funds have hit the market focusing on these regions. They are the WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Fund (GULF:Nasdaq), the Market Vectors Gulf States Index ETF (MES:NYSE), PowerShares MENA Frontier Countries Portfolio (PMNA:Nasdaq), and the SPDRs S&P Emerging Middle East & Africa ETF (GAF:AMEX).

But the one thing lacking in these ETFs is investments in Iran.

Of course, the U.S. has decreed it will not make investments in Iran, who it considers a state-sponsor of terrorism. That’s nothing to fool around with.

While much of the Western world stands firm by not investing in Iran, other nations, like China and Russia aren’t quite as righteous. Russia has repeatedly stood against strong sanctions in response to Iran’s nuclear program… as has China, but for different reasons. Iran and Russia have a history that goes back to before the Cold War. But China…

Iran is the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, and China, in early December 2007, signed a $2 billion deal with the country to secure oil supplies.

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Two Asian newspapers revealed that China’s fight against inflation could pay off in the immediate future. If so, the SSE Composite Index (Shanghai: 000001.SS) Shanghai is the place for you to be.

Both The Shanghai Daily and The Standard reported that as early as this week the Chinese government could issue new numbers to show it has finally reined in inflation. The news could send the Shanghai Composite Index back up. In fact, in our June 11 issue, we thought it was a good idea to double down on the index while it was still in a trough.

The Asian newspapers quoted the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China as saying that the country’s inflation could peak in 2009 and then decline.

While the bank also predicted that stock markets could continue to suffer through 2011, our guess is that any government reporting good inflation numbers has got to be considered a superstar.

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