It also suffered all-time lows against the yen and Swiss franc while the dollar rocketed to a 14-year high against the franc and made record peaks on the Australian and New Zealand dollars.

The euro's headlong flight drew a chorus of comment from European, the US And Japanese officials that the Group of Seven industrial powers stood ready to act in the market.

Most importantly the US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers spoke up to say that the US stance was the same as in the G7 communique which followed the September 22 intervention.

He confused the issue somewhat, however, by repeating word for word the old mantra that a strong dollar was in the National interests of the United States. Dealers took this as a slap in the face for European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg who had asked Mr Summers to modify the language of the policy so that it was friendlier toward the euro. And it was Mr Duisenberg and his future that most concerned the market now as investors waited for today's ECB news conference to see if he could rescue the euro, and perhaps his career with it. "They've raised rates and it didn't work. They've intervened and it didn't work. People want to see a radically different policy," said Mr Ken Landon, senior currency strategist at Deutsche Bank, adding that the most effective stance would be to sharply curb euro zone liquidity and so the supply of euros.

"But there's no sign the ECB is willing to take such steps, so the euro stands condemned," he concluded. Mr Landin also argued that Wednesday's events proved intervention was a flawed response to the euro's woes.

"What they did was to create a speculative bubble as people bought the euro in expectation of yet more intervention," he said. "What we saw yesterday was that bubble bursting."

The breaking point came when Wall Street rallied sharply from deep early lows, catching the interbank market long of euros up at $0.8570. That tripped stop-loss sell orders under 85 cents and again at $0.8460 and in turn encouraged speculative selling by a mob of momentum and black box funds. They trampled over the previous record low at $0.8440 and took out massive options positions at 84 cents, triggering yet more distressed selling and taking it as low as $0.8324 on EBS. The entire move took just two hours.

At the same time the euro sank to lifetime lows against the yen, falling all the way from 92.00 yen to crater at 89.50, and on the Swiss franc deep under 1.5000 francs. Dealers noted with some amusement that the euro hit record lows on such currencies as the Lithuanian litas and the Kazakhstan tenge, so challenging the usual excuse of euro zone officials that its weakness was all due to dollar strength.

Which is not to say the dollar isn't strong. It too made a 14-year high on the Swiss franc at 1.7990 francs and against a basket of major currencies - as measured by the FINEX futures trade-weighted contract - it jumped to decade highs.