020 7898 0500It was a big day on Thursday for the euro as it managed to hit new lows against sterling and the US dollar, hitting the lowest rate since September 2003 against the US currency. This was due to the European Central Bank (ECB) announcing specifics on its €1 trillion euro stimulus program. The central bank announced the program back in January to start the €60 billion a month instalments on the 9th March and this will continue up until at least September 2016. Interest rates remained at an all-time low at 0.05% as investors expected. The quantitative easing details will likely force the euro to weaken further.
In other news, manufacturing orders from Germany were reported at a 3.9% decrease, vastly down on December’s figure of a positive 4.2%. Eurozone growth figures are released this afternoon, forecast to improve from 0.8% to 0.9% – should this happen, we could potentially see a short-term boost for the single currency.
