The euro was among the weakest currencies on the Forex market today after the release of a bunch of extremely poor macroeconomic reports and a very pessimistic economic forecast. While the currency has trimmed its losses by now, it is still trading lower against the vast majority of the most-traded currencies. The one exception was the Great Britain pound, which was even weaker than the euro.
Eurostat reported that retail sales sank by 11.2% in March. The actual reading matched market expectations.
The European Commission released a very pessimistic forecast, predicting a record 7.7% drop of GDP this year and just a modest rebound by 6.3% in the next. The report said:
The COVID-19 pandemic and the containment measures it has necessitated have profoundly disrupted peopleâs lives and the economy. Global demand, supply chains, labour supply, industrial output, commodity prices, foreign trade and capital flows have all been affected.
It added further:
Given the severity of this unprecedented worldwide shock, it is now quite clear that the EU has entered the deepest economic recession in its history.
According to a report from Destatis, German factory orders sank by 15.6% in March on a seasonally adjusted basis. Year-on-year, the indicator tumbled 16.0%.
Markit released final estimates of services PMIs for European countries. While the indicators were extremely low, they were in line with expectations for the most part. The services Purchasing Managers’ Index for the whole eurozone crashed to 12.0 in April from 26.4 in March. Nevertheless, it was slightly above market expectations and the preliminary estimate of 11.7.
Beyond the negative economic releases, the euro was also under pressure from the German court’s ruling that the stimulus program of the European Central Bank violates the European Union treaties.
EUR/USD fell from 1.0840 to 1.0813 as of 11:59 GMT today, touching the low of 1.0782 intraday. EUR/JPY crashed from 115.43 to 114.72, trading near the lowest level since November 2016. At the same time, EUR/GBP edged up from 0.8713 to 0.8725.
If you have any questions, comments, or opinions regarding the Euro, feel free to post them using the commentary form below.
