Euro was a little higher earlier as some hope for joint euro bonds was floated. However, a press conference with three European leaders today scuttled that hope and sent the euro lower in Forex trading.
Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Mario Monti held a press conference today, and made it clear that their countries weren’t going to pressure the ECB into doing something to alleviate the sovereign debt crisis. Merkel even went so far as to say that joint euro bonds would send the wrong signal, and are, essentially, off the table.
After that conference, the euro began sliding, and is now down agains the US dollar, even though EUR/USD touched above 1.3400 earlier. Now, of course, euro is well below that level.
Once again, the difficulties faced by the eurozone in solving its sovereign debt problems rise to the fore. Leaders appear impotent, and unable (or unwilling) to tackle the problem in a way that is effective. As a result, confidence in the euro continues to wane. The euro is struggling against most major currencies, and it is also being upstaged by the UK pound, a currency that has had its own problems recently.
At 15:58 local time EUR/USD is down to 1.3323 from the open at 1.3341. EUR/GBP has slipped to 0.8588 from the open at 0.8594. EUR/JPY is down to 102.7305 from the open at 103.1610.
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