© Reuters. The euro declined after the ECB
Investing.com – The euro fell on Thursday after the european central Bank has announced its intention to liquidate its bond purchase program by the end of the year, but has reaffirmed its intention to keep interest rates unchanged until the middle of 2019.
The euro initially climbed to a summit daily, with the EUR / USD rose to 1.1852, the highest since may 16, before reversing the trend and is set to 1.1667 at 09:19 AM (13:19 GMT).
The ECB expects that its asset purchase program will end in December 2018, after having been reduced to 15 billion euros per month from September 2018, against $ 30 billion currently.
The euro has been under pressure after the ECB is also committed to keep interest rates unchanged until at least the middle of next year.
“The governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates remain at their current levels until at least the summer of 2019, and in any case as long as necessary to ensure that inflation remains in line with the current outlook of adjustment,” said the ECB.
The single currency has been under a pressure to the additional sale after the president of the ECB, Mario Draghi, has reiterated that the central bank was ready to step up stimulus measures if needed.
The economic growth in the euro-area economy is strong, said Mr Draghi, but he noted that the situation is moderate due to temporary factors, such as a trade lower, and pointed to the growing protectionism as a particular risk.
The ECB cut its growth forecasts this year, saying it now expects an increase of 2.1% of euro area GDP, against 2.4% in march.
It has raised its inflation forecast for this year, indicating that it now expects an increase in consumer prices of 1.7%, against 1.4% previously.
The euro was also lower against the yen and the pound, with the{{09| EUR / JPY}} in the decline of 0.95% to trade at 128,92 and the EUR / GBP down 0.49% to 0,8773.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six major currencies, was up 0.67% 94,19, the highest since 5 June, boosted by the weakness of the euro.
The ECB announcement came a day after the Fed has raised interest rates for the second time this year and indicated that it plans to present two more rate increases before the end of the year.
The Fed has trained the market of the american use of “strong” and said that economic activity had expanded at a “comfortable rate”.
Forex – euro declines after ECB
