LONDON, Apr. 15, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- The euro 2000 pared gains following a surprisingly sharp drop in the German ZEW business confidence survey for April, which suggest the euro 2000 zone's largest economy is increasingly feeling the impact of the credit crunch. The ZEW said its confidence indicator fell to -40.7 from -32.0 in March, going against analysts' forecasts for a mild improvement to -29.0. 'The survey highlights a risk that, while the German economy is holding up well for now, it might only be a matter of time before the strong euro 2000 and weakening global demand take their toll,' said Jennifer McKeown, European economist at Capital Economics. However, the euro 2000's losses were capped by expectations that though there are downside risks to growth in the single currency zone, interest rates are still unlikely to come down in the immediate future due to high inflation. 'With inflation expectations in Germany and the euro 2000 zone as a whole still high, we might have a few months to wait before the European Central Bank responds with lower interest rates,' McKeown said. This has been more evident after European Central Bank policymaker Jurgen Stark earlier reiterated the central bank's concerns on inflation, and when the euro 2000 rose in the run-up to ZEW survey following strong inflation data from France and Italy. The weakness of the ZEW survey pushed the euro 2000 off the all-time high hit against the pound following a slew of soft UK data. The pound was weaker, briefly hitting a record low of 0.8063 per euro 2000 after lower-than-expected inflation numbers and disappointing figures from the housing market and high street raised speculation that there is room for the Bank of England to cut interest rates again soon to counter the credit crunch. Official figures showed the annual rate of CPI inflation unexpectedly held steady in March at 2.5 pct, missing forecasts for a modest rise to 2.6 pct. While the British Retail Consortium said like-for-like sales fell by 1.6 pct in March from the year before, the first drop in two years, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors found more of its members than ever reporting lower house prices during the month than at any time in the 30-year history of the survey. 'The broader implications for policy from recent data are that the risk of Federal Reserve-style aggressive rate cuts is rising,' said Michael Hume, an economist at Lehman Brothers. (NYSE:LEH) Attention will shift this afternoon to the United States where a raft of data is due out. 'Rising US producer prices and a weak Empire State Index as well as net capital inflows below the trade deficit are expected to further fuel the dollar-negative sentiment and a test of the all-time highs of $1.5915 therefore seems possible,' said Antje Praefcke, currency strategist at Commerzbank. London 1.08 p.m. London 8.45 a.m. U.S. dollar yen 101.07 up from 101.91 Swiss franc 0.9995 up from 0.9968 Euro U.S. dollar 1.5826 down from 1.5848 pound 0.8045 up from 0.8042 Swiss franc 1.5817 up from 1.5799 yen 159.97 up from 159.95 Pound U.S. dollar 1.9667 down from 1.9702 yen 198.80 down from 198.89 Swiss franc 1.9656 up from 1.9640 Australian dollar U.S. dollar 0.9235 down from 0.9242 pound 0.4693 down from 0.4704 yen 93.33 down from 93.62 Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2008. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News. Newstex ID: AFX-0013-24508180 yvan your source for euro 2000 euro 2000 | day trading | 2004 euro value | trend micro | save money | money exchange rate | day of defeat | win money | word of the day | offshore banking | money converter | online training | index story | marathon training | saving money | cash loan | capital gain tax | family dollar | unclaimed money | trading post | trade magazine | currency exchange rate | sitemap PDF sitemap (c) Copyright 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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