Forex Market Update: EURUSD Slumped Back Toward 1.2910 on Weber Growth Comments

The dollar gained ground again in Asia, as did the JPY, with JPY cross sales helping to boost the buck. A key factor for the dollar bounce were pessimistic comments from ECB Weber who said to the FT that he saw few signs of recovery in Germany or Europe and this sent EUR-USD lower, though the single currency still found support ahead of 1.2900. The damage from the comment was more evident in EUR-JPY which pulled back from the late NY highs of 128.09 to lows of 126.75. This helped drag USD-JPY lower from late NY highs of 98.92 to lows of 98.09 with exporter sales also weighing on USD-JPY. Asian stock markets were mixed, providing little clear direction for the market. Both oil and gold posted minor gains but oil remained under $49/brl. Of note were upbeat comments on the economic outlook for China from PBOC’s Yi, who said that the economy bottomed in Q4 2008 and that he sees signs of a recovery. In addition, more spending by China was tipped in the South China Morning Press and Goldman Sachs raised their growth forecast for China.