NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - With scandals breaking and the stock market trying to end a lousy quarter on an upbeat note, it's no wonder the latest move down in the dollar has been mostly overlooked.

But it's clearly on somebody's radar screen, because the United States reportedly assisted Japan in intervening to support the dollar, the first U.S. currency action since last September. (I say "reportedly," by the way, because the New York Federal Reserve bank, which conducts currency market intervention at the behest of the U.S. Treasury, never confirms such moves until filing its quarterly report.)

I'm told the Fed intervened when the dollar/yen rate traded around 119 to 119.30, buying dollars and selling yen. Currency dealers suspect the Fed acted on behalf of the Bank of Japan, which has acted six times since late May to stop its currency from marching higher. That's because Japan, an exporting nation, is trying to claw its way out of recession, and the last thing it needs is a rising yen that will make its exports more expensive to the rest of the world.

The European central bank did its part too -- it confirmed it had intervened on behalf of the BOJ to sell yen and buy euros.

Here in the U.S., it appears officials don't mind seeing the dollar fall a bit because so many economists and manufacturers think it's gotten overvalued. And we haven't heard any of U.S. monetary bigwigs like Treasury Secretary O'Neill protest its decline. In fact President Bush echoed a favorite O'Neill refrain earlier this week saying market forces, and the health of the U.S. economy, will ultimately determine the dollar's value.

One currency strategist here in New York says he expects the dollar to slide a bit further. "If the economic data come in stronger," he says, "they sell it because that implies a bigger current account deficit (a broader measure of the trade deficit). If the economic data come in weaker they sell it because that implies a weaker (U.S.) economic recovery."

In addition, many say the latest wave of corporate accounting scandals is making big global investors even more wary of U.S. stocks, another reason to keep selling dollars.

As for the euro, it nearly reached parity with the dollar on Friday. When the euro launched in January of 1999 it was trading up around 117, but it quickly moved below parity as the U.S. economy surged and Europe lagged behind. My strategist friend says the euro will easily get to 103 in the coming weeks.

Should we worry about the falling dollar? Many currency experts say the latest currency moves don't mean a weak U.S. economy as much as they reflect global portfolio managers' need to become less overweight in dollar-based investments and more diversified into other currency-based investments.

The risk is that the dollar's gradual drop could accelerate due to renewed weakness in stocks, another big corporate scandal, or some event like a terrorist attack that really spooks investors. The hope is that none of this happens -- that we have seen the last of the bad corporate apples and that a recovering U.S. economy will gradually put a floor under the dollar.

Kathleen Hays co-anchors Money & Markets, airing Monday to Friday on CNNfn, and appears throughout the day reporting on the economy and how it affects financial markets. As part of CNN's Business News team, she is also a regular contributor to Lou Dobbs Moneyline.