The euro was weak today following macroeconomic releases during the Monday’s trading session. Not all of the reports were bad, but markets paid more attention to the negative part of the data.
The Italian Consumer Price Index rose 0.1% in April on a monthly basis, missing the average forecast of a 0.2% increase slightly. German retail sales dropped by 0.6% in March from the previous month — a result that was totally opposite to market expectations of a 0.8% increase. Meanwhile, the German CPI surprised positively, showing no change in April from the previous month, whereas experts had predicted a small drop by 0.1%.
The negative reports added to the previous bunch of soft data released in the eurozone recently. It led to speculations that the European Central Bank may be less aggressive with the planned quantitative easing tapering. Previously, it was thought that the ECB will start to unwind its stimulus in September. But now, experts speculate that the central bank may postpone scaling back stimulus or do it more gradually.
EUR/USD declined from 1.2123 to 1.2091 as of 18:26 GMT today. EUR/GBP fell from 0.8801 to 0.8785. EUR/JPY slid from 132.23 to 132.01.
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