Euro Bears Disappointed in Draghi

During the Asian trading session, the Euro managed to hold on to earlier gains in the wake of a Euro rally which followed the European Central Bank’s surprising policy decision. Analysts and market players alike had expected that the ECB might take a more dovish stance and consider additional stimulus measures but the bank left current policy as is. The head of the ECB, Mario Draghi, downplayed investors’ worries of a threat resulting from Italy’s political stalemate and on the whole sounded more upbeat than he had during previous conferences noting that there are positive signs which suggest that investors’ confidence in the Eurozone might be returning, and as such the ECB will take a wait and see stance for the foreseeable future.

As reported at 11:11 am (JST) the EUR/USD pair was trading at $1.3097, not far from the overnight peak of $1.3119, which was a gain of more than 1%. The EUR/JPY pair was also higher at 124.93 Yen, with the common currency gaining slightly against the Yen as investors shrug off Thursday’s meeting and look ahead to April when new leadership at the Bank of Japan should begin to aggressively target the Yen’s strength.

Markets will now focus on today’s release of the non-farms payroll data from the U.S. Labor Department which analysts expect will show 160,000 new jobs added last month and an unchanged unemployment rate.