"The Street was secretly thinking that the deficit figure would be $9 billion or lower," one government securities trader said.

Once again she came up with a deficit figure, slightly lower than before but still higher than the amount available.

"It is urgently necessary to get our company out of the very heavy deficit figures within 18 months," he added.

Most of the dollar's decline came early, minutes after the $15.71 billion deficit figure was released.

But a deficit figure well in excess of $14 billion would be a strong sell signal, they said.

And this from the party that gave us greek deficit figures at 3.4% in 2007.

Good to see the experts on the ball on the deficit figures.

The latest trade deficit figures were unlikely to affect that position, analysts said.

That deficit figure is far above the $108 billion ceiling set in the budget-balancing law.

His budget sets a deficit figure of $63.1 billion, the documents show.