The Euro has climbed today more than 0.5% as US officials contradicted each other regarding the US dollar. The US Treasury Secretary said at the beginning of the week that a weaker dollar is good for the US, while Trump commented yesterday that he wanted a strong dollar. The EURUSD pair benefited from this and trimmed its losses from yesterday and returned to 1.2450 levels.
Following Trump's statement yesterday that he wanted a strong dollar, the US dollar fell against major currencies. Expectations rose for the Euro to reach 1.28 levels and the British Pound to reach 1.45 levels. The dollar index is currently stabilizing at 88.70 near three-year lows, and so far, the index has fallen more than 3% in January, the biggest monthly decline since March 2016.
The British Pound rose again with the start of trading today to 1.4250 levels one more, after the British economy unexpectedly grew during the last quarter of 2017, indicating that the impact of Brexit was not as bad as anticipated. GDP grew by 0.5% against expectations of only 0.4%, making it the fastest pace of growth on a quarterly basis in 2017.
Today, markets are awaiting growth data in the US, with GDP expected to grow by 3% in the last quarter of 2017. If the reading is recorded as expected, it will be the first time that the economy has recorded growth of 3% or more for three consecutive quarters since 2014.
