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15 May 2015
EUR/USD a step closer to 1.15
FXStreet (Edinburgh) - The European currency has clinched its fifth consecutive week with gains vs. the US dollar, taking EUR/USD to trade around the mid-1.1400s.
Poor US data, usual trigger
In line with recent data releases from the US economy, today’s miserable results from Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization and the Reuters/Michigan index (in 7-month lows) just added to the set of disappointments, casting further doubts over the ‘transitory’ weakness cited by the Federal Reserve for the first quarter.
Collaborating with the upbeat sentiment around the euro, yields from German Bunds kept outperforming and supporting the single currency, albeit the sell-off in the European debt markets seems to have been taking a breather in the last couple of sessions.
Greece remained in the back burner after the Eurogroup meeting last Monday, followed by radio silence from its officials. The exception, of course, was finmin Y.Varoufakis, openly wishing on Thursday that the country still had the drachma and at the same time refusing to any plan that could force Greece into a “death spiral”.
All in all, the EUR keeps trading isolated from the uncertainty around Greece for the time being, even ignoring some warning signals from GDP figures in Germany and the EMU during the first quarter. Its main source of upside remains the beleaguered dollar, which keeps feeding speculations of a Q4 2015/Q1 2016 rate hike by the Fed.
Poor US data, usual trigger
In line with recent data releases from the US economy, today’s miserable results from Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization and the Reuters/Michigan index (in 7-month lows) just added to the set of disappointments, casting further doubts over the ‘transitory’ weakness cited by the Federal Reserve for the first quarter.
Collaborating with the upbeat sentiment around the euro, yields from German Bunds kept outperforming and supporting the single currency, albeit the sell-off in the European debt markets seems to have been taking a breather in the last couple of sessions.
Greece remained in the back burner after the Eurogroup meeting last Monday, followed by radio silence from its officials. The exception, of course, was finmin Y.Varoufakis, openly wishing on Thursday that the country still had the drachma and at the same time refusing to any plan that could force Greece into a “death spiral”.
All in all, the EUR keeps trading isolated from the uncertainty around Greece for the time being, even ignoring some warning signals from GDP figures in Germany and the EMU during the first quarter. Its main source of upside remains the beleaguered dollar, which keeps feeding speculations of a Q4 2015/Q1 2016 rate hike by the Fed.