The euro jumped to the highest level since February 2008 against the euro today with the help of surprisingly good retail sales in the United Kingdom as well as yesterday’s monetary policy announcement from the European Central Bank. At the same time, the sterling dropped to the lowest level since July 2013 versus the US dollar.
UK retail sales rose 0.4 percent in December, month-on-month, following the 1.6 percent increase in the previous reporting period. It was a positive surprise to Britain’s currency as analysts expected a drop by 0.6 percent. While the data was a bit supportive for the sterling, the Forex market is still driven mostly by yesterday’s ECB announcement, resulting in strength of the dollar and weakness of the euro.
GBP/USD dropped from 1.5009 to 1.4954 as of 12:46 GMT today. Meanwhile, EUR/GBP tumbled from 0.7569 to 0.7460 (1.4 percent), touching the low of 0.7428 intraday.
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