(eToro Blog) Even as the new year starts afresh, the Eurozone’s relentless debt worries continue to plague its leadership. It was announced that the heads of Germany and France will meet once again early next week to discuss and hammer out details for the new Eurozone budgetary rules that would enforce stricter discipline among its members. The agreement was originally proposed in December by Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, and all Eurozone members save the United Kingdom, agreed to be bound by the new rules. The pair has said that they are anxious to resume fine-tuning the proposed amendment to the E.U. treaty, which will be presented at the January 23rd meeting of Eurozone Finance Ministers.
Meanwhile, the wheels of industry in the Eurozone continue to turn, albeit slowly, with new releases of data which shows ongoing struggles in the manufacturing sector. Yesterday, Markit Economics released Germany and E.U.’s PMI data which, though improved, showed for the 5th consecutive month a reading below the point which delineates contraction from expansion.
Earlier today, the German Statistics Office presented December’s unemployment data, which showed the unemployment change declining by 22,000, which follows the 20,000 decline in November. The consensus of analysts had predicted a decrease of 10,000. The German Unemployment Rate also fell to 6.8% from the previous 6.9% besting analysts’ expectations that the rate would remain unchanged. Germany, as the largest and most productive economy in the Eurozone, has been the driver of the Eurozone’s growth, such as it is, and any less-than-positive economic data has a strong impact on the European equity markets as well as the common currency Euro.
On the eToro trading floor, the EUR/USD pair was most recently trading higher at 1.2985, and sentiment among the general population of the OpenBook platform is almost evenly divided among bulls and bears. Among the eToro gurus who favor the Euro-Dollar, juergenj13 recently closed a short position in the pair for a gain of 12%, and trader pyruss, who is anxious to hear Thursday’s ADP results, opened several shorts in the EUR/USD pair. Meanwhile Euro bull NMarijus continues to hold open his long positions in the pair.
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