EUR

Sampo Terho, a former member of the European Parliament and one of the top figures of the new populist and Eurosceptic party called Peerussuomalaiset (the True Finns), is pushing for Finland’s exit from the Eurozone, an outcome he considers inevitable.

Terho kicked off his party leadership campaign on Friday, telling a press conference that it was hard for Finland to keep its exports competitive because of its euro membership. "The only way to sustain our competitiveness is internal devaluation, which we carried out," he said, referring to a hard-fought labor reform that sparked anti-government demonstrations and strikes in 2015.

"The other option, if looking forward to the 2020s, 2030s and 2040s, is to return to our own currency … When we take this long look, that option seems possible, even likely," Terho said.

The Euro continued to book gains against the US Dollar during the early hours of Friday’s trading session, as the currency exchange rate attempted to break through the resistance put up by the 55-day SMA, which was located at 1.0593. The pair already attempted to move higher during Thursday’s trading. However, it failed to pass the SMA. Due to that and the fact that the weekly PP is located just above the SMA at 1.0604, it is most likely that the currency pair will fail once more and retreat lower by the end of Friday’s trading session.

Even though the European single currency edged higher against the Japanese Yen on Wednesday, it was unable to maintain trade above the 122.00 mark, with the resistance cluster there pushing the exchange rate down again. As a result, this cluster caused the EUR/JPY cross to make a U-turn and begin moving towards the 121.20 psychological support. Technical indicators, however, are unable to confirm the possibility of the negative outcome, as they keep giving bullish signals. In this case the 121.60 handle should be considered as a possible support, as it kept the Euro from sliding down for a whole week now, suggesting trade could close above this area.

The European Central Bank (ECB) made no changes to its record-low interest rates and announced no new measures on Thursday in what was its first policy decision of 2017. Specifically, the ECB left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record-low 0.0%, in line with forecasts.

The central bank also held its deposit facility rate steady at -0.4% and its marginal lending rate remained at 0.25%.
Additionally, the Governing Council confirms that it will continue to make purchases under the asset purchase programme (APP) at the current monthly pace of €80 billion until the end of March 2017 and that, from April 2017, the net asset purchases are intended to continue at a monthly pace of €60 billion until the end of December 2017, or beyond, if necessary, and in any case until the Governing Council sees a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation consistent with its inflation aim.

The euro may not exist in ten years’ time if Paris and Berlin fail to bolster the single currency union. The warning has come from the French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron in a speech at Humboldt University in Berlin on Tuesday, as cited by Reuters.

Macron was economy minister under Socialist President François Hollande until he resigned this year to create his own political movement and stand as an independent candidate in this year’s presidential election.

The truth is that we must collectively recognize that the euro is incomplete and cannot last without major reforms,” Macron added.

Stoxx 600 index had in the first two months of 2015 an incredible performance of about 25%, resulting the best equity index where to invest. But unluckily, in the month of April, the situation changed when the Index arrived at the 400 price level zone, a point where we had in the past, in 2000 and 2007, the beginning of two bear markets.

But this time, after the third historical top, prices created a double bottom at 300. Then in 2016 we had a trending range between 300 and 350 that was broken at the beginning of December.

The dollar broke out to the upside. The climb of the greenback, that had started immediately after the Trump’s victory early last month, has now reached important historic levels.

The European Central Bank will extend its asset purchase program to the end of December 2017, but at a reduced monthly pace.

The ECB said on Thursday it would extend its so-called quantitative easing program by nine months, until at least the end of next year, taking its total size above €2.2 trillion ($2.36 trillion). But starting in April, the bank will reduce the value of securities it buys per month to €60 billion from €80 billion.