By: Barbara Zigah
In Asian trading today, as investor focus returns to Eurozone fiscal problems the common currency Euro extended earlier losses against the greenback after failing to break above key resistance. As reported at 2:51 p.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the Euro slipped against the U.S. Dollar to $1.4377, a 0.4% after another failed attempt to break above $1.45. The Euro also fell against the Japanese Yen, slipping to 118.94 Yen on the EBS trading platform, adding to last week’s losses.
The newest concern among market players is Finland, which last week’s regional elections sent the True Finns political party, considered anti-Euro by many political watchers, to the Finnish Parliament. According to the that government’s constitution, the Finnish parliament has the constitutional right to vote on all European Union requests for bailout assistance, suggesting it could hold up E.U. aid plans for Portugal specifically, as well as create instability, in general.
The only thing propping up the Euro at this point is that prospect that the European Central Bank will move to raise interest rates again following the recent data which showed Eurozone inflation rising higher to 2.7% as compared to the same period a year earlier; economists had expected an increase to 2.6% last month.