Monday, January 9, 2012
Jan.
9 (Bloomberg) -- The euro snapped a three-day slide against the dollar
as the leaders of Germany and France met to craft a plan for rescuing
the 17-nation common currency.
The Swiss franc climbed on bets central-bank Chairman
Philipp Hildebrand's resignation threatens the nation's currency
ceiling. The euro pared gains after the talks between German Chancellor
Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. New Zealand's dollar
and Brazil's real were the top performers versus the dollar as
investors sought riskier assets. U.S. retail sales rose last month, data
this week may show.
"This meeting was just setting up for the
finance-minister meeting later this month," said Mark McCormick, a New
York- based currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. "We
have a little tug of war between better macro data in the United States
and policy developments in the euro zone."
The shared currency advanced 0.1 percent to $1.2728 at
11:12 a.m. New York time, after earlier falling to $1.2666, its weakest
level since Sept. 10, 2010. The euro was little changed at 97.84 yen
after dropping earlier to 97.28, the least since December 2000. The
dollar fell 0.1 percent to 76.89 yen.
The euro is unlikely to rise over $1.28 this week, McCormick said.
Futures traders increased their bets to a record high
that the euro will decline against the dollar. The difference between
wagers that the shared currency would fall versus those that it would
rise -- so-called net shorts -- surged to 138,909 in the week ended Jan.
3, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
released Jan. 6.
'Very Stretched'
The euro is rising today as traders purchase the
shared currency to close short positions, rather than on optimism about
the Merkel-Sarkozy meeting, according to Adam Cole, head of global
currency strategy at Royal Bank of Canada's RBC Europe unit in London.
"It's more to do with very stretched positioning than anything else," Cole said.
The shared currency will decline to $1.27 by the
second quarter, according to the median forecast of analysts surveyed by
Bloomberg. That's down from a previous estimate of $1.28.
Merkel welcomed progress on talks on the fiscal pact
at a joint press conference with Sarkozy after their meeting and said
there was "very close agreement" between their two countries. She said
euro-area leaders will discuss making the European bailout fund "more
efficient" and that Germany and France "are ready to examine" how to
speed up capital payments into the European Stability Mechanism bailout
fund.
Today's meeting will be followed by a round of talks
among euro-area leaders before the next summit in Brussels on Jan. 30.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti also will visit Berlin this week, and
Sarkozy and Merkel will both travel to Rome on Jan. 20 for negotiations
with the Italian government.
Hildebrand Resigns
The franc rose to the strongest since September
against the euro after the nation's central bank president quit. Philipp
Hildebrand stepped down after a currency transaction by his wife last
year dented his credibility.
The central bank said in a statement its cap of 1.20
francs per euro "remains unchanged." It imposed the ceiling on Sept. 6
to halt the currency's advance as Europe's debt crisis fueled demand for
the relative safety of Swiss assets.
The franc gained 0.1 percent to 1.2138 per euro after
touching $1.2108 earlier, the strongest since Sept. 20. It gained 0.2
percent to 95.32 centimes per dollar.
The dollar gained 0.6 percent over the past week, the
third-best performance among the 10 developed-nation currencies tracked
by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes.
Dollar Index
IntercontinentalExchange Inc.'s Dollar Index, which
tracks the greenback against the currencies of six major U.S. trading
partners, slipped 0.1 percent today to 81.179.
