Euro Burst through the Channel, but Yet Has to Struggle to Keep its Positions

EUR/USD

The euro kept rising on Thursday. Since the start of the week it has already gone up to 1.2950 from the desperate 1.2620. In general, the positive sentiment was supported by well-bid auctions held in the countries enjoying a special interest of investors. Germany, Spain, France and EFSF as well were checking the market appetite for their securities. Demand proved high and yields – lower than during the similar auctions at the end of the year. But it would be really interesting to know what role the ECB played in these cases.  Interestingly, the EUR/USD was moving up almost invariably, which more…

Euro is Ready to Pull Out Of the Downward Channel

EUR/USD

Yesterday the markets got very inspiring news that supported demand for risk. It was reported that Greece continued negotiations with its creditors, which is in itself a good sign. Negotiations were suspended last Friday, and many set to get ready for the uncontrollable default. Later markets got news that the IMF wanted to raise its lending capacity to $ 1 trillion dollars from the current less than 400 billion. Such sums will enable it to render support even to Italy, though not for a long time. The bond auction in Germany showed very good results. The country raised 3.44 billion at more…

WB Cuts the Global GDP Estimate, but Markets Go Up

EUR/USD

The World Bank has significantly cut its forecast for this year’s global economic growth, expecting it to be at 2.5% instead of 3.6% as was predicted last summer. Hardly any of the international organizations, be it OECD, IMF or World Bank, has given a correct estimation of the growth potential  over the last four years, however the slowdown trend  is clear cut and many agree with this. As for Europe, its GDP is forecasted to decline by 0.3% at year-end.  We believe that the recession will be especially strong during the first half of the year, after which the economy will more…

EURO: Reversal or Sales Opportunity?

EUR/USD

Markets cannot remain in sell mode all the time. At one time or another the ticker will swing the other way. Perhaps, we will see one of these moments in the near future. The euro has found the support just above 1.26. This happened despite the S&P’s logical decision to downgrade the rating of the European rescue fund (EFSF) after lowering France’s rating. The good news here is that the lending capacity of the fund hasn’t been affected.  It still can lend up to 440 billion euro to the troubled European nations. That piece of news provided a short-term support to more…

So said so done: S&P Cut Ratings of 9 EU Countries, Including France

EUR/USD

Standard and Poor’s downgraded the credit ratings of France and eight other euro-zone countries on Friday night. France and Austria got stripped of their top credit ratings. After all, it’s quite natural after the agency deprived the USA of its top rating last August. The ratings of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus were right away lowered by two notches. The spokesman of the agency said that European politicians had failed to act adequately to handle the systemic crisis. Now investors are facing the EFSF issue as its prospects are dubious. Now Germany will have to increase its contribution to the fund more…