The euro has held up very strongly in the face of mounting concerns that Greece will soon have to leave the Eurozone. The IMF have been very vocal in their concerns that Greece is on the cusp of either being late with one of its up and coming repayments or missing it altogether, with the next €200 due on 1st May (a Bank Holiday for most), followed by another €770m on 12th May. This will be averted if reform negotiations are concluded by 24th April and bailout funds are released, but few in Europe believe that this deadline will see a congenial agreement between Greece and its creditors. With a government that has been voted in on an anti-austerity remit fighting against creditors that refuse to accept their piecemeal reform packages, the situation is likely to remain at loggerheads. Yet despite all this, the euro rallied sharply yesterday against the dollar with EURUSD trading back above 1.0800 very briefly. This morning we are at 1.0765, but this move has been more as a result of dollar weakness than euro strength. Yesterday saw another round of poor economic data from the US which saw widespread dollar weakness and 2 year Treasury yields pushed back below 0.50%. This also allowed GBPUSD to head higher and is at 1.4945 this morning, AUDUSD was further boosted and is at 0.7795.
Today attention will be on UK unemployment data where the rate is expected to decline to 5.6% from 5.7%. After that we see Eurozone inflation data and later inflation figures from the US and Canada, including Canadian retail sales.
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