Market News

The Euro’s slide to an 11-month low appears to have skidded to a halt, but the common currency remains vulnerable to further losses so long as the Eurozone crisis is unresolved.

The Euro managed to creep higher during the Asian trading session but still remains stubbornly close to an 11-month low which was struck on Wednesday. Market players cite ongoing worries over a Eurozone resolution as the primary reason for the sell-off.

Following the announcement by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank that they would leave their monetary policy unchanged, the Euro sank against the greenback, and stayed close to an 11-month low.

As was generally expected, the outcome of the last European Union summit left investors unsatisfied and the Euro, as a result, fell in Asian trading against the U.S. Dollar.

After an expected ECB decision which was followed by a disappointing press conference, the Euro took a turn for the worse and struggled to find footing in Asian trade.

As markets and analysts had been expecting, earlier today the European Central Bank announced another 25 basis point reduction to its benchmark interest rates, bringing the new rate to a record low 1%. Mario Draghi, the newly installed head of the ECB who assumed the role less than two months ago, appears to have set a fairly aggressive goal to reverse the previous administration’s tight monetary policy.

The common currency Euro remains steady as the European Central Bank is set to make what many believe will be its second consecutive interest rate cut later in the trading day.

Market players remain cautiously optimistic that a resolution to the debt crisis will be provided by the Eurozone’s leadership, as they prepare to meet later this week for what is being deemed as a make-or-break E.U.

Standard & Poor’s rating agency has said that they might embark on the credit downgrade of the Eurozone members en masse, unless the Eurozone leaderships find a definitive solution to solving the debt crisis which has plagued the region for the better part of two years.

The Euro is seeing some positive momentum in the Asian trading session on investor hopes of a definitive resolution to the European debt crisis as a crucial summit begins later this week.

With market players biding their time as they await the U.S. non-farms payroll data which will be released later in the trading day, the Euro struggled to gain any footing in Asian trading. Economists expect that the U.S. Labor Department will report that 122,000 new jobs were created in November, and that the unemployment rate will be unchanged at 9.0%; the earlier released ADP data portended a positive outcome, but its never a certainty that the U.S. report will trend exactly the same.

The Euro received a major lift yesterday following the announcement that the major central banks would coordinate efforts to ensure that there would be no dearth of global liquidity as a result of the ongoing Eurozone crisis.

The markets’ continuing skepticism as to whether a possible solution to the Eurozone debt crisis will be found by the region’s finance ministers meant that the Euro remained under pressure in Asian trading

With investor hopes still pinned on the Eurozone’s leadership to craft a solution to the ongoing debt crisis saga, the common currency moved higher against the U.S. Dollar in Asian trading, consolidating Monday’s gains.

Investor’ short covering helped to push the Euro higher earlier in the in Asian trading following an initial and uncredited report in an Italian newspaper which said that the International Monetary Fund was arranging an assistance package for Italy.