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ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB95938103825106823\nUp and Down Wall Street\nCalling All Eurologists\nAlan Abelson\nUpdated May 29, 2000 12:01 am ET / Original July 15, 2019 6:01 pm ET\nG oulash currency.\nWe're talking about the euro, of course, whose sickly state has mystified some of the world's most celebrated eurologists.\nNot that there's any scarcity of speculation as to the reasons for its woeful condition. Indeed, the decline and fall of the euro has been analyzed ad nauseam by all the specialists in ad nauseam analysis. And they have solemnly concluded that it's caused by either economic factors, obtuse central-bank policy or something in the water.\nOur own hunch, as intimated, is that what's bugging the euro is simply the fact that blending so many politically and culturally disparate elements makes for an unappetizing stew prepared by too many cooks. It's kind of like a sauerkraut and foie gras pizza -- in theory it might be okay, but, we suspect, not everyone's (anyone's?) dish and if consumed could yield tumultuous gastronomic consequences.\nDoes this mean the euro is doomed? No, but there's no assurance it will age well. Should the euro eventually threaten to disintegrate, the wise powers that be in euroland are sure to turn to a traditional remedy: the creation of a brand-new and, as always, much-improved currency which, naturally, will be called the neuro.\nRick Ackerman, a recovering options trader and occasional Barron's contributor (although we can't remember the last occasion) who now runs a crystal-ball investment newsletter called Little Black Box Forecasts that offers daily prophecies on commodities futures, indexes, equities and whatnot, has been very much on the money on the euro. When everyone (or at least everyone who had heard of it) was celebrating its arrival as the new monetary hope of mankind, Rick ventured a skeptical view of its future. A view, incidentally, he continues to hold, although he doesn't rule out the odd rally.\nThe euro, he says, pure and simple is a casualty of the great tidal flood of dollars that has inundated the world. Currency values are determined, he insists, by global financial transactions that, he reckons, now run far into the trillions of dollars each year, and the currency of choice for the dealmakers and financial finaglers who do these transactions is the dollar. Which leaves the poor euro to languish, friendless, unloved and pretty much beside the point.\nWhatever the exact depressant or combo of depressants, the awful truth is that the euro, since starting life in January 1999, has lost nearly 23% of its value against the dollar (at one glorious point early on, it sold at a 17% premium) and is off some 14% from this time last year and 9% so far this year.\nThe decline has wounded the amour-propre of the Europeans, even as it has stimulated their exports. More to the investment point, as Joseph Quinlan observes in an excellent communique he issued last week under the Morgan Stanley imprint, it is strictly bad news for U.S. companies with a heavy European exposure.\nGillette , as he notes, fingered the impact of the weak euro as the culprit for recently reported disappointing earnings and its not-so-great expectations; its stock, as any unfortunate who owns it knows, swiftly took gas. Gillette's plaint is that something -- quite a bit, actuallygot lost in the translation from euros into dollars. A growing chorus is likely to be intoning that same sad refrain in the weeks and months ahead.\nOn this score, Quinlan thoughtfully offers a handy guide to the vulnerable in the form of a table listing 30 companies that depend on Europe for a significant -- in some instances, predominant -- share of their operating profits. For your viewing pleasure, we've reproduced that table, which shows name, rank, occupation and degree of exposure.\nWhat strikes us is that along with the names you'd expect -- Noble , Global and Schlumberger , Monsanto , Hercules and Dow Chemical , Philip Morris , Coca-Cola , Bestfoods , Sara Lee and the like -- are the Apples , Compaqs , Sun Microsystems and Ciscos . But then, why should we be surprised? Nobody has been riding the breakneck gallop to globalization harder than tech.\nQuinlan explains that sales by companies' affiliates in Europe account for three times as much as those companies' exports to Europe. \"That's another way of saying,\" he explains, \"that the fundamental driver of international earnings comes from affiliates, not exports.\" And the influence exchange rates exert on affiliate income, he points out, is immediate. \"Just ask Gillette.\"\nAs John Donne, then, had he been more attuned to what makes the world go 'round, might have said, no currency is an island unto itself. And so, inevitably, the plunge of the euro surfaces on this side of the Atlantic as something else for the stock market to worry about. Ah well, in a bear market there's always something else to worry about.\nUp and Down Wall Street, Part 2"