Euro Boosted by Euro Area PMI Releases

An unexpected but positive surprise from preliminary PMI releases in the Eurozone helped to provide a lift to the common currency Euro versus the US Dollar which has been under some pressure as the debate on the timing of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike continues to grow. Eurostat earlier reported that both the manufacturing and services sector PMIs in Germany read higher than analysts had expected, while the French PMIs bested last month’s reading, though manufacturing failed to meet expectations. Those reports helped to push the Eurozone PMIs higher, as well, with manufacturing, services and the composite readings at 51.9, 54.3 and 54.1, all solidly in expansive territory and above analysts’ expectations.

As reported at 9:08 am (GMT) in London, the EUR/USD was trading higher at $1.0974, not far from the session peak at $1.0999. Meanwhile, the EUR/JPY was also higher at 131.1295 Yen, moving away from the session high of 131.3815 Yen; the day’s low was 130.4920 Yen. The EUR/GBP was trading only a few pips from the trading day’s peak of 0.7352 pence, and at 10:19 am (GMT) was holding at 0.7349 Pence.

Fed Official Stokes More Debate

In the US, comments made by the chief of the San Francisco bureau of the Federal Reserve Bank added fuel to the current debate on an interest rate adjustment; John Williams said that he felt the US economy was resilient enough to withstand a stronger dollar which suggested to investors that a rate hike in June was still a possibility.

Barbara Zigah

After working on Wall Street, Barb began her second career as a freelance writer at Daily Forex, where the CEO recognized fresh, untapped potential and was willing to give her a try. She’s never looked back. Since then, she’s worked steadily as a freelance writer and editor in the financial services and Forex-related industry.