EUR Forex Weekly Archive
Daily Economic News - May 28, 2008
The Euro finished yesterday's trading session with mixed results. A loss of close to 100 points to the greenback combined with a 40 points loss to the GBP. On the other hand, the EUR gained versus the JPY and the CHF. A likely explanation for this phenomenon is the conflicting publicized news from the different countries.
Yesterday, France President Nicolas Sarkozy advocated slashing taxes across Europe. If accepted by the Euro-zone nations, this tax reduction will possibly ease Oil prices worldwide, and should conclude in weakening the EUR. This might be the initiative to devalue the Euro as was stated by the French Finance Minister during the previous week.
Today there is almost no news to come out of the European markets. The most significant data will be the German Consumer Price, which measures the rate of inflation. Analysts expect German inflation to rise this month, and therefore forecast the index to increase by 0.5%, from -0.2% on the previous month up to 0.3%. The rest of the week will be exciting for the long term traders with the publishing of the Unemployment Rate, M3 Money Supply, Consumer Confidence and many more indicators. Even with the long term news coming from the Euro-zone is expected to have a appositive effect on the EUR, investors should also keep a keen eye on news from the rest of the world.
Daily Economic News - May 27, 2008
Yesterday, the EUR underwent volatile sessions against its major currency counterparts. The main reason for the high volatility was the low volume that was experienced in the market yesterday, which occurred due to the holidays in the U.S and the U.K, as well as the lack of data from the Euro-zone.
Looking forward to today, some vital news is expected for the EUR as several German market events are scheduled to be released. Early this morning at 06:00 (GMT), the German Consumer confidence was published. This survey, which measures the mood of consumers about the economic conditions, was forecasted by analysts to decline by 0.2 reading point, from 5.9 marks on the previous month, to 5.7. Instead it saw a steeper decline as it registered at 4.9. It contributed to depreciation in EUR bullishness, as the EUR/USD pair saw an immediate 50+ pip reduction. Meanwhile, the German Final Gross Domestic Product survey, which measures the change in the value of all goods and services produced by the economy was scheduled for this morning, and hit its forecasted increase by 1.5%. It is likely that the EUR/USD pair will bounce back from early morning bearishness.
Traders should note that today the EUR will be greatly influenced by USD developments, as traders should also be advised to watch carefully over U.S data.
Daily Economic News - May 26, 2008
The EUR experienced another week of bullishness versus its major currency rivals, most notably the Greenback. With the Euro-Zone's biggest rival seeing another week of bad data, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet kept with his hawkish monetary stance. The ECB and its officials have preached over the last month or so, that the slowdown in economic growth within the Euro-Zone was temporary and that no one needed to jump the gun. The strategy looks to have paid dividends as the ECB can now focus on inflationary scares within the region. Futures markets are showing that an ECB rate hike could be coming soon.
Euro-Zone data from last week produced solid numbers as the 15 Nation currency gained heavily against the USD. Economic stats from Germany, the largest EZ economy, which normally serves as a pre-cursor fro the rest of the EZ saw business confidence numbers rise in the month of April. The figures came back better than forecasted as they single handedly contributed to a 100 pip raise in the EUR/USD on Wednesday. PMI figures from Germany on Friday also helped push the EUR as the indices showed yet another month of expansion.
This week, it could be assumed that most EUR movement will come from US data, as the EZ lacks a set of significant events this week. The news week from the Euro-Zone will be highlighted by German Final GDP, German CPI, Consumer Confidence and German Retail Sales. A lion's share of European data is expected to return positive as we should expect a good week from the EUR.
Today the EUR is absent from the economic calendar and will likely range trade for most of the day.
Daily Economic News - May 21, 2008
Yesterday, the EUR saw bullish trends against rival currencies, especially vs. the weak USD. The EUR's rise in value resulted mostly because of very good German economic news. The German Ifo Business Climate index, measuring the mood of firms in manufacturing, construction, wholesale and retail was releases, beating out forecasts at a value of 103.5. The German Ifo Business Expectations index also beat forecasts, measuring at 97.3. Both indices fueled the continuation of the EUR bullish momentum.
Experts conclude that as inflationary pressures rise, traders appear to prefer currencies where inflation targeting has been upheld better - namely the EUR. In an interview with French regional daily Ouest France, ECB governing council member Christian Noyer, said that he believes the financial crisis is not over. Noyer also mentioned that the Euro zone Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew over 1% in the last 6 months and that the growth rate is becoming very close to normal. In fact, the economic data that was released yesterday from Germany, further supported Noyer's comments.
On tap today from the Euro-zone, traders should keep a close look at Italian Retail Sales and even more importantly EUR Industrial New Orders. Both data released are expected to be lower than their previous values, which might hurt the EUR's latest rise. Traders should pay close attention to Retail Sales because it is usually the first significant indicator of the month that relates to consumer behavior and is susceptible to surprises.
