Feisty greenback: Dollar continues to hold its own

It's one of the anomalies of our time, but not for those with critical and discerning eyes. Stock market institutional bulls and bears have renewed their battle over Dow 8,000, the federal budget deficit will exceed $1 trillion for at least the next two years, and Congress will likely have to raise the national debt ceiling to about $13 trillion -- all bearish news for the dollar.

In fact, one could make a strong argument that 2008 was the worst year for the both the U.S. banking sector (U.S. taxpayers can vouch for that) and the U.S. stock market (take a look at your 401k) in three generations. And what's the dollar done during that 12-month period? It'sstrengthened against the euro (16 percent), British pound (25 percent), and Swiss franc (9 percent).