Talking Points:
- The Euro was little changed versus the US Dollar
- Euro-Zone ZEW Survey economic sentiment rises to 33.9
- German ZEW Survey economic sentiment rises to 16.1, above expectations
The Euro was little changed versus the US Dollar after today’s Euro-Zone ZEW Survey showed Financial market experts' sentiment concerning the Euro-Zone’s economy has improved from the prior month. The Euro-Zone’s sentiment figure printed 33.9, which was above the prior 28.3. The German ZEW Survey Economic Sentiment index rose to 16.1, above economist’s expectations of 15.0, and above the prior 10.4. The Current Situation figure also showed an improvement rising to 55.0 from the prior 54.4 reading, beating expectations of a 54.2 figure. A reading above 0.0 indicates optimism, while below indicates pessimism.
Looking into the press release, ZEW said that the economic slowdown in emerging markets is exerting pressure on the German export industry, but confidence is growing that the German economy is sufficiently robust to meet these challenges. But, given the fact that we are approaching the Fed rate decision on Wednesday, it seems that the market is firmly focusing on the decision’s possible effects. With the Euro's tentative status as a funding currency, it should be impacted by how equity markets respond to the Fed's “liftoff”, so the ZEW survey today seemed to have had little influence on pre-decision positioning.
