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Steady as she sinks; Euro collapse continues

Kit Klarenberg
Written By:
Posted:
17/03/2015
Updated:
17/03/2015

The euro plunge continues; yesterday, the suffering currency reached a 12-year low against the dollar, and a seven-year low against the pound.

Total losses this year already amount to almost 13 per cent – and there could be more to come. Hamish Pepper, a foreign exchange strategist at Barclays, believes “it’s only a matter of time before we reach parity with the dollar…we will do so by the end of this year.”

“What we’re seeing between the Eurozone and the US is the greatest and most obvious divergence in monetary policies, but also the broader economy, where prospects for growth are different.”

Euro weakness saw a pound worth €1.4255 at one stage, a seven-year high; sterling has risen almost 11 per cent against the euro since the start of this year, and Harry Adams of Argentex says the pound could hit €1.55 in the near future, a level unseen in 13 years.

He said that the “euro-bashing” would continue for the foreseeable future, and that he was “wary of predictions of when this will end. Investors are very wary of holding euros.”

Kathleen Brooks of Forex.com went on to echo Pepper’s prediction that the euro will reach parity with the dollar – but believes it will do so “by the end of this week.”

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Christopher Vecchio of DailyFX said “the euro is hitting the skids like no other time seen in the past decade…and there’s no reason to think this will improve any time soon.”

While ongoing doubts about Greece’s continued membership of the Eurozone play their part, another reason for this intensifying decline in the euro’s fortunes is the European Central Bank embarking on a policy of quantitative easing; a minimum of €60bn of newly printed money will be injected in the Eurozone every a month until next September, in a last-ditch effort to prevent deflation and reignite economic growth. The removal of the Swiss currency peg has also played a role.

However, while the rate is great news for Brits travelling to continental Europe at present (and there are even ways in which to ‘lock in’ current rates for future use, as documented in the Your Money guide to the falling Euro), it means that goods made in the UK are getting increasingly expensive in Europe, which could be a hindrance to the export market.

Ultimately, the currency markets, UK plc investors and optimists would do well to bear in mind Adams’ wariness. “A week ago, analysts predicted that the pace of decline in the euro had to slow at some stage,’ he says. “However, we were well and truly wrong.”