020 7898 0500This week has represented a downward slide for the euro as we have seen it weaken against a number of major currencies from Monday onwards. Poor investor confidence figures at the start of the week sparked an early decline for the single currency against a backdrop of ongoing reaction to the recent European Central Bank (ECB) decision to lower interest rates further and implement its monetary stimulus programme.
The Sentix Investor Confidence Index is a monthly index that reflects the economic outlook of analysts and investors in the Eurozone; on Monday the index showed much less optimism than was expected from within the eighteen-nation bloc. This set a downward path which the euro continued to follow more or less for the rest of the week as there was no positive data to provide support for the eighteen-nation currency. The euro fared particularly poorly against sterling because of the more positive data, most notably unemployment figures, and talk of increased interest rate, from this side of the channel, while its losses against the US dollar were more muted. Influential data is scarce ahead of the weekend, so it is likely that we will continue to see general trader activity and events elsewhere define movements in euro rates until next week.
