Dollar nears one-year high vs. euro

FRANKFURT (AP) -- The euro slipped lower Tuesday as stocks tanked amid concerns that Lehman Brothers won't be able to raise capital, and banks slumped in the aftermath of the twin mortgage buyers' bailout.

Meanwhile, falling oil prices added to worries about the slowing global economy, and also dragged on oil stocks.

The 15-nation euro bought $1.4101, down from $1.4106 late Monday in New York. The euro hit 1.4099 during morning trading, its lowest point against the greenback since late September 2007.

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Over the weekend, the U.S. Treasury decided to place Fannie and Freddie, which own or guarantee about half of U.S. mortgage debt, into a conservatorship and remove a big cloud of doubt that had been weighing on global markets.

However, it will probably end up costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said allowing the companies to fail would have extracted a far higher price from consumers by driving up the cost of home loans and all other types of borrowing, and that the failures would have created a maelstrom of turmoil in financial markets around the world.

Pending home sales fell 3.2% in July after rising in June, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors that was released Tuesday. The report is a forward-looking indicator of the housing market which tracks contracts signed during the month.

In other currencies, the British pound rose somewhat to $1.7582 after bottoming out at $1.7470 earlier Monday, a 28-month low. The dollar remained steady against the Japanese currency, to ¥107.13 from ¥107.13.