The euro finally dropped yesterday, touching a weekly low point against the dollar after recently having reached its highest mark since 2010. This downward movement comes on the eve of a meeting of ECB policy makers that threatens to highlight the E.U’s debt crisis. The ECB’s President Mario Draghi is likely to point to the fact that the region’s economy is weak even though analysts are forecasting that he will probably leave rates as they are for the moment. Many brokers are trading on a mid- to long- term drop for the euro.
Further afield the Yen’s devaluation may be slowing as Japan’s central bank may decide that the currency’s 7 percent drop is enough. Taro Aso, Japan’s minister of finance made a statement to the effect that the central bank were not attempting to devalue the currency, but rather attempting to help the country escape from rampant deflation. So far the Yen has dropped by 8 percent this year, which remains the most substantial decline among the top 10 developed nations according to Bloomberg. In this same period of time the dollar has risen by 0.1 percent and the euro by 3 percent.
Platinum seems to be the big mover and shaking as far as commodities go. The precious metal climbed to its highest peak in almost a year and a half, stretching its margin over gold to the widest since 2011. This price hike comes in the wake of worries that supplies are set to decline as South Africa’s production slumps to just 73% of its former output. Last month the largest producer of platinum, Anglo American Platinum Ltd. Announced that it is due to leave four of its mine shafts idle. The forecasts are that global production will fall by 2.7 percent in the coming year.
