The euro climbed today after concerns about the outcome of the French presidential elections eased while economic data released from Europe during the trading session was decent enough to avoid hurting the currency.
Polls showed that centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron has a lead over far-right anti-EU candidate Marine Le Pen. Considering that a victory of Le Pen, who has extreme plans of leaving the European Union, would be disastrous to the euro, the news was very supportive to the currency. The fact that two socialist candidates failed to create an alliance did not hurt either.
Eurostat reported that the Economic Sentiment Indicator for eurozone was almost flat in February, demonstrating just a minuscule increase from 107.9 to 108.0. The report said:
Broadly flat euro-area sentiment resulted from higher industry, services and construction confidence on the one hand and lower consumer and retail trade confidence on the other hand.
While was data was not amazing, at least it was negative as was the case with the US indicators.
EUR/USD rose from 1.0562 to 1.0630 but trimmed its gains and was at 1.0587 as of 21:07 GMT today. EUR/GBP was at about 0.8512 after opening 0.8470 and rising to the daily high of 0.8540. EUR/JPY climbed from 118.45 to 119.34.
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