The euro was in rout today after a report that the International Monetary Fund will not participate in the third round of the bailout for Greece. Prospects for monetary tightening in the United States put additional pressure on the euro, as well as on other currencies.
Financial Times reported today that Greece’s “high debt levels and poor record of implementing reforms disqualify Greece from a third IMF bailout of the country.” This means that some eurozone countries (and Germany in particular) may also bail out from the bailout. It looks like the story of the Greek woes has not yet ended and just took turn for the worse.
Obviously, the news did nothing to help the euro, driving the currency to the lowest level in a week against other major peers. The outlook for an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve, which has boosted the US dollar, added to the pressure on the struggling shared currency of 19 (at least for now) nations.
EUR/USD dropped from 1.0981 to 1.0904 as of 16:55 GMT today. EUR/GBP declined from 0.7035 to 0.6998 and EUR/JPY went down from 136.12 to 135.62.
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