Euro weaker on Eastern Europe currency concerns

Euro weaker on Eastern Europe currency concerns

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The euro weakened Wednesday on concerns that trouble for Eastern European currencies will hurt the shared currency.

Worries were spurred when Fitch Ratings cut Russia’s debt rating, citing declines in oil prices among other issues, and after the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan devalued that nation’s currency by 18 percent.

The move by Kazakhstan’s central bank follows similar moves by Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

The euro was also hurt by new data showing that retail sales in the Eurozone were down by 1.6 percent in December over the same month in 2007.

In late morning trade in New York, it took $1.284 or ¥115.1194 to buy a euro, while they yen traded at ¥89.655 to the greenback.

At the same time, it took 150.13 Kazak tenge to buy a dollar and the Russian rouble traded at 36.206 to the dollar.

The pound, meanwhile, saw gains after the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply reported that its services index was at 42.5 in January, up from 40.2 in December, showing that while the UK services sector remains in contraction, that contraction has slowed.

At just past 11 a.m. in New York, the pound traded at 88.57p to the euro while it was also up versus the US dollar as the greenback traded at $1.4497 to the pound.