Euro Loses Steam on Draghi Comments

The Euro continues to edge lower against the U.S. Dollar following comments made yesterday by Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, who noted that the Euro’s recent rise was a risk to the Euro area’s economic outlook as well as to inflation. One currency analyst expects that $1.35 will be retested in the near term, and said that market players were using the dip for buying opportunities in the common currency. As reported at 12:26 p.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the EUR/USD pair was trading at $1.3351, only a few pips from the session high; yesterday the pair had traded to a low of $1.3333.

The Japanese Yen also continued its downward march against the Euro as well as its major rivals after investors noted that the G20 failed to chastise the Japanese central bank and government for markedly and intentionally depreciating the currency over the past several months. The EUR/JPY pair was trading at 125.46 Yen, a gain of 0.3% and not far from Friday’s low of 122.90 Yen and 127.71 Yen, the 34-month peak struck early in the month. Currently, the pair is trading lower at 125.02, a gain of better than 9.5% since the beginning of the year.