EUR/USD 1.3569 last.
From ZeroHedge:
Via Goldman Sachs,...MORE
...And while Goldman notes that deposit shifts have begun to 'normalize', fragmentation remains and lending to corporates continues to decline...One risk factor for the economic outlook is the exchange rate. The trade-weighted Euro has appreciated by 2.5% since the beginning of this year and by almost 5% since the announcement of the OMT in September.
To be sure, this appreciation comes after a significant weakening of the Euro in the preceding 12 months on the back of rising concerns about the stability of the Euro area, and the Euro TWI is still more than 1% below its average since 2008.
Moreover, export expectations are improving on the back of the pick-up in the global industrial cycle despite the appreciation of the Euro. The index of ‘new exports orders’ in the PMI survey, for example, rose to a level of 48.8 in January after reaching a trough of 44.7 in September. Thus, there is so far no indication that the exchange is putting the ‘gradual recovery’ scenario at risk.
When asked about the exchange rate in the January press conference, President Draghi said that “… the exchange rate is certainly a very important element as far as growth and price stability are concerned, and we certainly use it as one of the elements in our economic assessment”. However, he also said that “… so far, both the real and the effective exchange rate of the euro are at their long-term average.”
But a further strengthening at a similar same pace to what we have observed in recent months would eventually weigh more meaningfully on the economy, and this in turn would lead to a change in the “medium-term outlook for price stability”. The ECB, we think, would react in this case by cutting rates, in an attempt to slow the upward momentum of the exchange rate.
