Will the euro continue to weaken this week?

A bad day for the euro again on Friday, falling against the majority of its 16 major trading partners. This drop came in spite of Spanish unemployment figures coming out much better than forecast, dropping by 107,600 in December (the biggest reduction on record) and 147,400 for the whole of 2013, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the country still faces unemployment rates of above 25% for a further five years. Outside of this it was quiet on the data front across the Eurozone. Today we have German preliminary inflation data along with Spanish, Italian and Eurozone wide services Purchasing Manager Index figures. Looking forward to the rest of the week we have tomorrow German retail sales and unemployment figures released, whilst later on in the week we have trade balance data, factory orders and the German constitutional court ruling on the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Outright Monetary Transactions policy (OMT). We also have the ECB’s rate setting meeting on Thursday which is followed by an ECB press conference which will be closely watched for clues on how they are going to help the Eurozone economy and if this involves a cut in interest rates and/or additional liquidity to be pumped into the banks. Call your trader for the latest live rates and forecasts.