020 7898 0500After a strong performance last week, the euro suffered on Friday in spite of positive comments from the European Central Bank (ECB) President who stated that the “real economy in Europe is picking up now very, very visibly”. Strong data out of the UK caused the euro to lose ground against sterling; but, the poor labour report out of the US did little to change the negative trend for the euro seen throughout most of the day.
The main event this week will be Thursdays ECB monetary policy decision and press conference that follows. No change is expected this month, but investors will look for hints on quantitative easing in the press conference regarding as the current program is due to expire in December. It is widely touted that we will see the ECB announce an extension to its quantitative easing program; but, reduce the monthly amount of asset purchases in the coming months.
Alongside of this we have Spanish unemployment data released on Monday and Europe-wide services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) released on Tuesday.
