By: Barbara Zigah
The Euro fell past an 8-month low against the U.S. Dollar in Asian trading today, again, as in the past due primarily to the absence of a credible response to the European debt crisis. As reported at 2:14 p.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the Euro is trading against the greenback at 1.3318, slightly off the session low of 1.3314; this fall follows a Friday low in New York of $1.3418. The single currency has been under tremendous pressure, falling more than7% last month, the largest one month drop in nearly a year.
Making matters in the Eurozone worse, the Greek government announced that it would miss not meet its target deficit even in spite of the significant austerity measures in play. Nonetheless, inspectors from the Troika, the E.U., IMF and ECB, are expected to release Greece’s next tranche payment.
Finance ministers from the Eurozone will be meeting later today to discuss Greek options and working out more details on the European Financial Stability Facility, amendments to which are still in the process of being ratified.
Other higher risk currencies got off to a rough start in the Asian market, with the Australian Dollar trading against the U.S. Dollar most recently at $0.9618; it lost nearly 10% of its value last month, the largest decline in three years.