The euro is declining today by 0.28% against the US dollar shortly after 10:00 a.m. GMT, while it is trying to reduce the losses it suffered today, which led it to declines of 0.35%.
The euro’s attempt to rebound comes with a larger-than-expected rise in the ZEW Economic Sentiment Index, which indicated that confidence in Germany and the Eurozone rose to the highest levels in two years.
The index recorded 31.7 and 33.5 points for Germany and the Eurozone for the current March, respectively, which represents the highest levels since February of 2022.
The euro’s movements also come as focus shifts to the outcome of the Federal Reserve meeting. It is most likely that the current rates will not be changed, but the focus will be on Jerome Powell’s speech following the announcement of the decision.
While signals from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve about the possibility of discussing an interest rate cut in upcoming meetings or reaffirming the significant progress made in confronting inflation may be a helpful factor for the euro.
Returning to today’s figures, these levels of confidence come despite the return of inflation to accelerate again in the Eurozone and Germany in February and the shift of expectations for a first interest rate cut to June. While the Vice President of the European Central Bank, Louis de Guindos, also spoke yesterday about the possibility of actually discussing this move at the June meeting.
This hope of lowering the interest rate in the second half is the main contributor to pushing sentiment to a noticeable rise in March and contributed to enhancing the future expectations of many business sectors, according to ZEW.
Today’s data also confirm what a series of previous data indicated this month regarding some aspects of improvement, or at least the slowing deterioration, in economic activities across the countries of the region, especially in Germany and France.
