FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) – The euro fell slightly against the US dollar on Tuesday. The common currency was last quoted at $1.1806. This is the lowest level in a week. In early trading, the euro was still trading around half a cent higher. The European Central Bank set the reference rate at 1.1826 (Monday: 1.1855) US dollars. The dollar therefore cost 0.8455 (0.8435) euros.
The euro was weighed down somewhat by weak economic data from Germany. The Center for European Economic Research (ZEW)’s economic expectations for Germany surprisingly deteriorated in February. Economists, however, had expected a further improvement. Finally, some other economic data such as incoming orders had recently improved.
Some economists also see signs of hope. “The ZEW economic expectations have been stabilizing since the beginning of the year at a level that was last seen at the beginning of 2022, i.e. before the Russian attack on Ukraine,” commented Robin Winkler, chief Germany economist at Deutsche Bank. “Among other positive signals, the ZEW survey gives us fresh confidence that the German economy is continuing to gain momentum.”
The British pound came under pressure after data on the labor market and wage growth. The latter weakened surprisingly significantly. In addition, the unemployment rate surprisingly rose slightly. From the perspective of financial market players, this increases the likelihood that the Bank of England will cut the key interest rate twice this year in order to stimulate the economy.
For other important currencies, the ECB set the reference rates for one euro at 0.87330 (0.86900) British pounds, 181.06 (181.79) Japanese yen and 0.9116 (0.9129) Swiss francs. A troy ounce of gold (around 31.1 grams) most recently cost $4,869. That was about $123 less than the day before./jsl/he