Update to the previous post

The above procedure was not correct (!)

It seems that the rates were updated when I run the file from my browser, not with the cron job. Finally, I found the solution.

The correct cron job command, as instructed by Bluehost, should have been

[FONT="Courier New"]/ramdisk/bin/php5 -c /home3/MY_USER_NAME/public_html/php.ini /home3/MY_USER_NAME/public_html/currency_update.php[/FONT] and I had deliberately omitted the middle part as there was no php.ini file in my home directory. This was most probably responsible for the error message in the email and for the cron job not running.

I installed a master php.ini file in my home directory by selecting php Config from the Software/Services section of the cPanel and that seems to have done the job: the email now reads

X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.14
Content-type: text/html

and the rates are updated normally. I tested it repeatedly by updating the rates from oanda, waiting for the cron job to run and seeing them changing within a minute (I still have the cron job to run every minute).

End of story for me.

Note: /home3/MY_USER_NAME is the name of my home directory. A user's home directory is displayed on the left side of cPanel in the Stats section.