This morning, the euro has gained momentum against the US dollar, the Japanese yen, and the British pound on hopes of positive results of the EU summit.
Last week, leaders of the 27 European Union countries met in Brussels for their first face-to-face talks since February in an effort to hammer out a deal on the new stimulus measures. The talks were supposed to take place over two days. However, they are currently running for the fourth day in a row. At the same time, the atmosphere of the meeting remains quite tense: there are a lot of pressing issues and the partiers are unable to reach unanimous decisions on them. The EU leaders stood at an impasse haggling over a plan to revive economies after the Covid-19 pandemic. They also failed to strike a deal over the bloc's next seven-year budget.
The yen weakened against the US dollar and the euro. Besides, gloomy economic reports are weighing on the Japanese currency. Today, Japan unveiled a report showing a 26.2% drop in exports. Economists are voicing concerns as that such a significant decrease has occurred for the fourth time in a row, which is a bad sign.
The yuan rose against the greenback after the announcement of the People's Bank of China's decision on the interest rate. The regulator kept the interest rate unchanged at 3.85% for the third month in a row. Before that, the central bank lowered the benchmark key rate by 20 basis points in order to stimulate more rapid economic recovery. This decision proved to be effective and the People's Bank of China decided to continue to stick to this policy. In addition, China can boast of strong economic indicators: China's GDP for the second quarter of this year increased by 3.2%, which is a very good result in times of crisis.
This morning the single currency grew by 0.32% against the greenback. The US dollar is trading at 1.1465 against the euro in comparison with the previous session, closing at 1.1428 against the euro.
Versus the yen, the euro also climbed up by 0.5%. Now the yen is trading at the level of 122.93 against euro. On Friday, it was trading at 122.32 against the euro. The US dollar also rose against the yen by 0.21%. Since Friday, it managed to edge higher to 107.02 against the yen and to 107.24 against the yen this morning.
The pound sterling decreased by 0.15% to the 1.2549 level against the US dollar. On Friday, the pound sterling was trading at the level of 1.2568 against the US dollar. Versus the euro, the British currency also lifted lower by 0.39%. The pound sterling may decline to 1.0947.
The yuan dropped against the greenback. Today, it declined by 0.08% to 6.9868.
The US dollar index managed to rise by 0.01% against a basket of six major currencies. It also moved higher by 0.01% against sixteen world major currencies