In a comparatively quiet European session Euro movement was a little restrained. While the common currency retained yesterday’s declines against the Pound it was able to advance on the US Dollar thanks to comments issued by Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen.
Although this week’s US data (including Monday’s retail sales report) has justified the Federal Reserve’s decision to steadily taper stimulus, the odds of the central bank increasing interest rates fell after Yellen spoke in New York.
Yellen stated that she can’t see any signs of inflation and that the Fed remains committed to supporting the US economic recovery by any means necessary.
The ‘Greenback’ accordingly weakened against the majority of its most traded currency counterparts and slide against the Euro.
In the opinion of currency strategist Lee Hardman; ‘What Yellen said reinforced a market view that there’s still slack in the economy and any increases in interest rates in the future will be gradual. This may be negative for the Dollar in the near term’.
During the European session the Euro to USD exchange rate experienced minimal movement following the release of Germany’s producer price index. The data showed that producer prices in the Eurozone’s largest economy fell by more-than-anticipated.
However, as North American trading got underway the US Dollar clawed back losses thanks to surprising domestic initial jobless claims figures.
First time claims for unemployment benefits rose by 2,000 in the week ending April 12th, taking the figure to 304,000. Economists had expected the level of claimants to rise to 315,000.
With markets closing for the Easter break EUR/USD fluctuations will be limited over the weekend, but investors will no doubt be looking ahead to next week and Eurozone consumer confidence, services and manufacturing figures.
Euro (EUR) Exchange Rates
[table width=”100%” colwidth=”50|50|50|50|50″ colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Currency, ,Currency,Rate ,
Euro,
,US Dollar,1.3847,
Euro,,British Pound,0.8236,
Euro,,Australian Dollar,1.4809,
Euro,,New Zealand Dollar,1.6074,
Euro,,Canadian Dollar,1.5240,
[/table]
