Daily Market Comment

18.05.2012

The euro remains under pressure from concerns about contagion if Greece leaves the eurozone and the strength of eurozone periphery banks. The tone yesterday was also not helped by the news that Spain, as expected, fell back into recession with the economy contracting in Q1 for the second consecutive quarter and concerns were highlighted by a rise in yields at a Spanish auction. The news that Moody’s has, as had been speculated, downgraded 16 Spanish banks has help push the euro down to fresh four month lows to the dollar, below $1.2650, at the European open. With January’s low of $1.2625 in sight, there is little on the economic calendar to deflect attention away from the ongoing eurozone crisis. Sterling, meanwhile, underperformed other majors. It fell to its lowest level against the dollar since mid March, close to the $1.5735 level, as concerns about Greece and the fragility of the Spanish banking sector heightened risk aversion. The UK currency also pulled back further from Wednesday’s three and a half year high against the euro, which starts the day comfortably above the STG80p level. The gloomy economic UK picture painted by Wednesday’s BoE Inflation Report continued to weigh on sterling, along with fears that the eurozone debt crisis could widen.

Weekly Market Brief

18.05.2012 Weekly Market Brief - 18th May

Schedule of data releases and key market events for week 21st - 25th May 2012

Irish Economy Watch

17.05.2012 Irish Economy Watch - May 2012

Our monthly update of the the recent trends in the key Irish economic indicators

Central Bank Watch

03.05.2012 ECB Watch May 2012

Despite the current elevated level of inflation, the ECB has still engineered a marked fall in interest rates and loosening of monetary policy conditions in recent months. The difficult part is the transmission mechanism for these changes to the real economy. Loan growth to the private sector has ground to a virtual halt. However, the ECB may feel there is little more it can do in terms of monetary measures to boost growth. It did indicate today, though, that any exit strategy for its current accommodative monetary measures would be premature.