Strong Euro weights down on Eurozone’s recovery

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As Christmas was celebrated by the Christian world last week, it also carried a considerable portion of market participates away from their trading screen, leading to the tradition annual decrease of volumes. Following a rather muted trading week, EUR/USD reached a 2.5 year peak on Friday. The record price was achieved after the EUR strengthened versus the USD by nearly 1.5% during the day, to approximately 1.389 USD. The current level represents nearly a 15% strengthening of the Euro versus the USD since July 2012’s 1.2 levels.

Consequently, the current EUR/USD levels are going to present a bigger problem for European exporters, as those would receive less Euros for their foreign currency to fund their operations. Alternatively, local producers might have a harder time competing with global supply. For example, Germany’s Import Price Index, published on Monday, indicated an annual -2.9% decrease. Undoubtedly, the strengthening Euro had some part in this. 

While the strengthening Euro may be regarded as an equal problem to all Eurozone members, a bigger issue might be the fact that not all of these members had equally recovered from the great recession. For instance, Germany’s GDP currently increases at an annual pace of 1.1%, supported by a quarterly increase of 0.1% in exports. The French GDP, however, was published last week and indicated a muted 0.2% increase, handicapped by a -1.3% decrease of exports during the last quarter. Evidently, not all shared sorrows are halved sorrows. 

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