The Finance Insider blog

Search This Blog

Blog Archive

The Finance Insider

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Poor News Data Leaves Euro & Dollar A Little Flat

The Euro and US Dollar were left a little flat on Tuesday after poor data out of both regions raised fears that the US and Euro central banks may need to intervene.
As a result, the Japanese Yen went on to be the top performer while other competing currencies continued to suffer.
A report released yesterday has shown that U.S. manufacturing activity has contracted for the first time in nearly three years. This fanned investor scepticism that crept in about hopes for the European Union's plan to support debt laden countries.
The European Central Bank (ECB) may well cut interest rates by 25 basis points to 0.75% at its policy meeting on Thursday, after data showed that the jobless rate in the Euro zone had risen to a record high in May, while factory activity remained steady at its lowest level in three years.
Yesterday both Finland and the Netherlands said that they were opposed to a plan for the Euro zone's permanent bailout fund to purchase government bonds in the secondary market, further pressuring the Euro.
The main issue now, is that the plan can't proceed if members don't agree and many analysts see this as a sign that there might be more bad news ahead for the Euro.
The announcement of the plan on Friday had sent the Euro soaring about 1.7%, its biggest one-day percentage gain since last October.
Activity though has been relatively thin ahead of the Fourth of July U.S. holiday. Some analysts expect the Federal Reserve to announce that it will embark on a third round of asset purchases, known as QE3. This could occur as soon as the central bank's next policy meeting scheduled from 31st July to 1st August.
Today, market focus will be on the U.S. Commerce Department which is due to release .U.S. factory orders data today. Orders are expected to have risen around 0.1% in May, from a 0.6% drop the previous month.
The Dollar has managed to outperform the Euro which had slipped to $1.2595.
The Yen outperformed most of its major counterparts and the greenback was off from Monday's high around 79.98 Yen at 79.72 Yen, while the Euro stood at 100.42 Yen, back above the 100 Yen mark.

No comments:

Post a Comment