The dollar hit a record low against major currencies and gold reached a 27-year high on Friday as investors ignored data suggesting that inflation moderated last month.

Analysts said the prospect of rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and stronger growth outside the US was weighing on the dollar and boosting commodities.

"The Fed's rate cuts have a specific driver - growth risks for the US economy," said Naomi Fink, senior currency strategist at BNP Paribas.

Analyst Mitch Pinheiro, who follows the company for Janney Montgomery Scott, said the company would need to get around $900 million for Godiva to avoid diluting earnings.

Pinheiro said Campbell has resisted selling Godiva in the past partly because there was no place to reinvest the money that would equal profits generated by the chocolate company.

He said that has changed. The company could put money toward its planned entry into the soup business in mainland China and Russia and into expanding manufacturing capacity for its increasingly popular V8 juices -- and do it without taking on additional debt.

"I think the fact that the company's putting Godiva up for sale signals that Campbell Soup has strong growth opportunities in its core portfolio," Pinheiro said.

Nasdaq reached a deal with Borse Dubai that will give Nasdaq control of the OMX stock exchange while giving the Dubai stock exchange a 20% stake in Nasdaq.

Under the deal, Nasdaq sold its 28% stake in the London Stock Exchange to Borse Dubai as well. Nasdaq said the moves "will provide us with a footprint unlike any other exchange."

Meanwhile, Qatar's state investment fund bought a 20% stake in the LSE, possibly presaging a struggle for control of that exchange with the Dubai exchange. Qatar said it wouldn't make a full bid for the LSE but reserves its right to do so..

The euro has been soaring against the U.S. currency in recent weeks, hitting all-time high of $1.3927 last week as the dollar has fallen on turbulent market conditions stemming from the ongoing U.S. subprime crisis. The Fed meets this week and is expected to lower its benchmark interest rate from the current 5.25 percent.

Greenspan said that at the end of 2006, some 25 percent of all currency reserves held by central banks were held in euros, compared to 66 percent for the U.S. dollar.

In terms of being used as a payment for cross-border transactions, the euro is trailing the dollar only slightly with 39 percent to 43 percent.

But he expresses deep disappointment with Bush. "My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending," Greenspan writes. "Not exercising the veto power became a hallmark of the Bush presidency. . . . To my mind, Bush's collaborate-don't-confront approach was a major mistake."

Greenspan accuses the Republicans who presided over the party's majority in the House until last year of being too eager to tolerate excessive federal spending in exchange for political opportunity. The Republicans, he says, deserved to lose control of the Senate and House in last year's elections. "The Republicans in Congress lost their way," Greenspan writes. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither."

He singles out J. Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican who was House speaker until January, and Tom DeLay, the Texan who was majority leader until he resigned after being indicted for violating campaign finance laws in his home state.

"House Speaker Hastert and House majority leader Tom DeLay seemed readily inclined to loosen the federal purse strings any time it might help add a few more seats to the Republican majority," he writes.

He adds three pages later: "I don't think the Democrats won. It was the Republicans who lost. The Democrats came to power in the Congress because they were the only party left standing."

However, he calls Clinton a "risk taker" who had shown a "preference for dealing in facts," and presents Clinton and himself almost as soul mates. "Here was a fellow information hound. . . . We both read books and were curious and thoughtful about the world. . . . I never ceased to be surprised by his fascination with economic detail: the effect of Canadian lumber on housing prices and inflation. . . . He had an eye for the big picture too."

During Clinton's first weeks as president, Greenspan went to the Oval Office and explained the danger of not confronting the federal deficit. Unless the deficits were cut, there could be "a financial crisis," Greenspan told the president. "The hard truth was that Reagan had borrowed from Clinton, and Clinton was having to pay it back. I was impressed that he did not seem to be trying to fudge reality to the extent politicians ordinarily do. He was forcing himself to live in the real world."

Dealing with a budget surplus in his second term, Clinton proposed devoting the extra money to "save Social Security first." Greenspan writes, "I played no role in finding the answer, but I had to admire the one Clinton and his policymakers came up with."

Greenspan interviewed Clinton for the book and clearly admires him. "President Clinton's old-fashioned attitude toward debt might have had a more lasting effect on the nation's priorities. Instead, his influence was diluted by the uproar about Monica Lewinsky." When he first heard and read details of the Clinton-Lewinsky encounters, Greenspan writes, "I was incredulous. 'There is no way these stories could be correct,' I told my friends. 'No way.' " Later, when it was verified, Greenspan says, "I wondered how the president could take such a risk. It seemed so alien to the Bill Clinton I knew, and made me feel disappointed and sad."