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Bob Moon: You can thank a stronger-than-expected reading on July factory orders for beefing up the value of the dollar even more today. The greenback hit a seven month high against the euro this morning. If you’re planning a trip to Europe soon, that means one dollar now buys 69 euro cents, which is certainly better than it has been. As Brett Neely reports, it’s not just the good news here at home, it’s the bad news coming out of Europe.

Brett Neely: It’s been a grim week so far for the European economies. Car sales are way down across the continent — 41 percent in Spain. In the U.K., a government minister said the economy was the worst it’s been in 60 years. All of those factors are pushing the dollar higher against the euro and the pound. Jonathan Loynes with research firm Capital Economics says it’s only going to get worse for Europeans.

Jonathan Loynes: House prices have a lot further to fall; consumer spending will weaken; unemployment will rise quite sharply.

But Loynes says the dollar’s rise doesn’t mean the U.S. economy is recovering.

Loynes: But we still feel it. The worst is yet to come as far as the U.S. economy is concerned, and we still think we could see a recession in the second half of the year in the United States.

And Loynes says the weakness of the U.S. economy means that the dollar isn’t likely to rise much further against the euro.

In Berlin, I’m Brett Neely for Marketplace.