In the early morning market trading the EUR fell from its three week high against the USD whilst at the same time Asian markets were able to enjoy an upswing after a positive move on Monday trading. Yesterday a number of senior EU Finance ministers met in Brussels though not only was there no concrete plan agreed upon, the increasing concern over failure to reach an agreement suffered an additional significant setback. There is now real concern amongst European policy makers and traders that Greece is heading towards a default.
The EUR suffered an additional hit after a report sparked worries that Portugal who’ve been tagged as the next Eurozone country to suffer economic collapse is continuing to move in that anticipated direction.
In currency markets the EUR/USD pair opened first in Asia at a price point of 1.3011 as the day progessed, the pair fell to a session low of 1.2986 before recouping some of those losses by the end of the trading day.
In farther afield, the Japanese Yen (JYN) fell back against the EUR from a recent one month high of 100.47 the EUR/JPY currency pair reached a trading low of 100.01 and there it maintained position for the market close. Against the USD, the JYN was stable throughout the day after unexciting reports from the Bank of Japan regarding growth forecasts for 2012. The bank cut its year on year forecast to 2% from a previously forecast 2.2% back in an October statement.
In Australia, the AUD fell back from a 3 month high against the USD, in late and early trading profit takers forced the currency to fall 0.8% to 1.0482 from the previous day.
The drop in the EUR assisted in pushing the USD higher and off from it’s 3 week low of 79.602 that it reached on Monday. End of day trading saw it to climb to 79.849. Trader and general market attention is focused on an upcoming two-day summit of the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee beginning today.
