Market: new summit of the euro on the eve of the ECB

Wednesday afternoon on the foreign exchange market, the european single currency has resumed its march forward in the face of its u.s. counterpart, perchant on a three-year peak. This afternoon, the euro takes 0.31 per cent to 1,2337 dollar, but not without having scored a high of 1,2357 in session. The main motto of the Old Continent cup to the inverse of 0.30% against the yen, the pound sterling and the swiss franc.

Since the beginning of this young year, the euro has already gained almost 3% against the u.s. dollar. On the other hand, it is only gaining 0.4% against the swiss franc, remained neutral against the yen and lost almost 1.4% against the sterling.

In fact, we learned that in the United Kingdom, where the Bank of England has raised its rates in November, a prospect not on the agenda for the ECB, the unemployment rate was still 4.3% in November, to its lowest level in over 40 years.

What about the other european statistics of the morning ? In its preliminary version, the composite index PMI of the IHS Markit for the Eurozone in January came in at 58.6 points, a little more than in December (58,1) and expected (57.9 in). In spite of slight disappointments manufacturing, the services took the composite index to its highest level since June 2006.

‘The euro area starts in the year 2018 on the hats of wheels’, commented the chief economist of IHS Markit, Chris Williamson, which may indicate ‘very strong growth’ the quarterly GDP of the Eurozone is close to 1%. ‘This excellent start made by the economy of the euro area leaves anticipate an upward revision to forecasts for growth and inflation for the region in 2018,” said Mr Williamson. A good point, of course, to the euro.

The dollar, for its part, may be penalized by the adoption of protectionist measures by Donald Trump, which is likely to raise the risk of a trade war, especially with China.

Anyway, ‘the continuing appreciation of the euro leaves a lot of questions on the outcome of the meeting of the committee of monetary policy of the ECB tomorrow’. A meeting of the board of governors will be followed tomorrow afternoon, a press conference hosted by Mario Draghi.

EG

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