Euro economy under pressure

By IBTimes Staff Reporter | June 23 2008 6:33 AM

The dollar was unable to make any challenge on levels below 1.55 on Friday and weakened steadily to lows just beyond 1.5650 before consolidating around 1.5620. The US currency was undermined by a renewed increase in energy and commodity prices during the day with crude reversing Thursday’s losses.

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The dollar was initially little changed close to 1.56 on Monday with the US currency hampered by high oil prices following the Jeddah summit where no major policy announcements were made.

The French PMI indices weakened sharply for June with the services and manufacturing indices both below the 50.0 level. The German manufacturing PMI index fell, but the services index was little changed. The influential German IFO index weakened to 101.3 in June from 103.5 the previous month which was worse than expected.

Both Euro-zone PMI indices were below the 50.0 level for June and the services index was at the lowest level for five years. Concerns over the Euro-zone economy will increase and there will be pressure for the ECB not to increase interest rates which will unsettle the Euro. The dollar recovered firmly to around 1.5520 level following the European data.