Euro Reverts Losing Trend on Confidence

The euro stopped its decline versus the yen and the dollar today as optimism reappeared in Europe after a report indicated that German business confidence had the highest rise in more than a year, spurring demand for the Eurozone currency in forex markets.

After several days of consecutive declines the Eurozone currency reverted its trend and climbed after the German ZEW economic sentiment, a highly considered index by traders, climbed the most in more than a year, indicating that the wealthiest economy in the European Union may be dodging its way out of recession. A part from regional news in Europe, an U.S. housing report is likely to show positive numbers today, which declined attractiveness for the currencies which gained the most versus the euro during the past days, the Japanese yen and the U.S. dollar.

The surprising high ZEW economic sentiment helped European markets to pare some of the losses from previous days, but even with a record high for this report, the euro’s did not manage to rally sharply, still indicating that traders remain rather cautious while investing in euro-price assets. Analysts forecast that the euro may gain further if the U.S. housing reports push risk appetite higher today.

EUR/USD traded at 1.4119 as of 10:23 GMT from a previous rate of 1.4047 yesterday. EUR/JPY traded at 134.28 from a previous rate of 132.73 yesterday.