EUR/USD Plunges By Most For Nine Weeks

Published: 31 Oct at 1 PM Tags: Euro, Dollar, Pound Sterling, America, UK, Eurozone, USA, Germany, South Africa, Sweden,

The Euro began the European session on the back foot against the US Dollar as the American asset was boosted overnight by the Federal Reserve’s policy statement.

The statement was less dovish than anticipated and reduced the odds of the Fed delaying tapering until next year, boosting the ‘Greenback’ in the process.

Things continued to go downhill for the Euro with a stream of lacklustre data releases fuelling speculation regarding a future rate cut.

An unexpected decline in German retail sales and consumer confidence left the Euro bearish, and further losses were sustained as Eurozone unemployment held at a record high 12.2 per cent while the currency bloc’s annual inflation rate fell to an almost four-year low.

The concerning reports prompted this response from currency strategist Kiran Kowshik; ‘There’s a vulnerability for the Euro. Clearly this is quite a downward surprise and that could see a lot of long positions unwind.’

Similarly, one Frankfurt-based senior currency strategist observed; ‘There’s a very sharp decrease in the Euro-region inflation rate and the market is pricing in the ECB might take some more action. That’s reflected in a weaker Euro.’

Meanwhile, the Pound was able to post its most significant gain against the Euro for two months following the publication of all of today’s European data. Sterling derived additional support from UK data showing an impressive increase in domestic house prices.

The Euro is currently trading against the Pound in the region of 0.8504

The Eurozone’s annual inflation rate fell from 1.1 to 0.7 per cent in October, the lowest since November 2009.

In other currency news, the Swedish Krona stumbled against its main rivals as Swedish manufacturing PMI declined from 56 to 54.5.

South Africa’s Rand also dipped, hitting a two-week low against its US rival ahead of the release of South African trade balance data. The report revealed that the nation’s trade deficit narrowed by less-than-expected in September, coming in at -18.94 billion Rand rather than the -16.35 billion Rand forecast.
As of Thursday, 31st October 2013, the Pound Sterling currency rates mentioned within this news item were as follows:

GBP EUR exchange rate was 1.1815, GBP USD exchange rate was 1.6043, and GBP ZAR exchange rate was 16.1417.

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