The dollar appears to be beginning a long-anticipated slide, and that could keep U.S. stock prices in the doldrums and put upward pressure on interest rates, The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning.

The U.S. dollar’s decline against the euro, the yen and other major currencies signals a slackening of global investors’ seven-year ardor for the American economy, which helped to propel this country’s bull market of the late 1990s. A growing number of global money managers have begun to find other parts of the world more appealing, which threatens to reduce the more than $1 billion a day that foreigners have been sending to the U.S. in recent years.

A sustained fall in the American dollar would have other consequences. The impact would probably be an uptick in inflation, by boosting import prices and making it easier for domestic manufacturers to raise their own prices. On the positive side, it also could bring an increase in exports that would boost overall growth.

The value of a nation’s currency is a weather vane, showing the direction the winds of international capital are blowing. When investors send more money into the U.S. than they take out, the dollar strengthens because investors need dollars to buy U.S. assets. The weather vane now seems to be turning: The dollar last week traded at a six-month low against the yen and near a 16-month low against the euro.

Although the American dollar has seen ups and downs before, the significance for markets could be far greater this time because the U.S. has become dependent to an unprecedented degree on foreign capital. Any sign that overseas investors are losing appetite for U.S. investments has bigger implications than in the past.

A continuing fall in the dollar could signal the end of an era that began around the mid-1990s when the American economy was seen as invulnerable. The escalating infusion of capital and the rising dollar were key to the virtuous cycle of American prosperity. Foreigners sent money to the U.S. assuming they could get better returns than anywhere else.