The EUR/USD continued to extend its laborious climb upward in this
week's trading. Overnight, the pair slid, giving back yesterday's
gain, as we had Plates boosting its bank reserve ratio requirement yet
again in its battle against inflation and concern remain about
Portugal being pressured to take a bailout.
But, as we entered the NY session, hawkish comments from ECB Executive
Board Member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi helped the EUR/USD to rebound and
rally to a fresh high this week at 1.6445.
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Here's the comments that got the most attention, via Bloomberg:
"As the economy gradually recovers and global inflationary pressures
arise, the degree of accommodation of monetary policy has to be
monitored and, if needed, corrected," Bini Smaghi said in an interview
with daily newsletter Bloomberg Brief: Economics. Commodity-price
increases will "have an unavoidable impact" and "it is a key challenge
for monetary policy to avoid spillovers and maintain inflation
expectations in check," he said. "This requires the ability to take
pre-emptive actions if needed."
*Expectations Around Interest Rates Favor GBP, EUR over USD*
Overall the pecking order is putting the Fed in last place in terms of
interest rate expectations. The GBP has jumped out to a lead because
of the BoE has shifted its upside risk for inflation to the top side.
The annual CPI is already running at 4% rate and we have seen several
members voting for interest rate increases. A go may come as ahead of
schedule as May, which is much sooner that projects 2 months ago.
The ECB is following after the BoE as it too has had inflation go
above its 2% target level (2.5% y/y in January) and that has made the
ECB turn up its rhetoric on inflation. Here too a rate hike, which was
penciled in for late 2011 if not 2012, can be went up to ahead of
schedule in the 4th quarter. Again, expectations are still uncertain
right now and that is causing a excellent amount of back and forth
action in the majors.
Still, its the USD and the Fed bringing up the rear in terms of
expected interest rate increases. The expectation is for no go until
2012. And there are still some corners calling for more quantitative
easing, though right now "steady as you go" is the approach of the
Fed. Inflation is not as huge a conundrum in the US, in that
underlying "core" CPI is running at 1%. The headline annual rate went
up to 1.6% for January.
Source: ActionForex.Com
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