Euro Striking New Multi-Month Highs as ECB Meeting Looms

By: Barbara Zigah With a meeting of the European Central Bank’s policy setting committee looming later in the week, the common currency struck new multi-month peaks in Asian trading today. As reported at 2:34 p.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the Euro was trading against the Japanese Yen at one point as high as 120.00 Yen, a price not seen since May 2010, before slipping back to 119.65 Yen.

Against the U.S. Dollar, the Yen was trading at $1.4269 on the EBS trading platform, a 5-month peak. Most traders expect the Euro to continue to gain broadly until the meeting takes place as speculation becomes reality.

Market Fluctuations

In spite of repatriation inflows, the Japanese Yen remains under downward pressure as the coordinated efforts of the G7 continue, and from growing speculation that the Japanese central bank may downgrade the country’s economic assessment later in the week. The U.S. Dollar gained slightly against the Yen, trading up 0.1% to 84.11 Yen; on Friday, the greenback struck a 6-month peak of 84.735 Yen on the EBS trading platform.

Most analysts see the Dollar’s rise to be limited, and possibly reversing, as the Federal Reserve’s controversial quantitative easing program draws to a close. Some analysts note that the Fed’s stance has become more hawkish in recent days, but one key Fed board member refuted those claims noting that a change to current policy is very far away.
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