GBP/EUR: Pound Flat vs. Euro - Investors weigh Brexit & Italian break
  • EUR/USD gains after three days.
  • ECB policy helps the common currency against the dollar.
  • Jobless claims undid the USD.

EUR/USD restarted its climb after declining for a few days from the two-and-half-year high recorded last week. Euro strengthened after the European Central Bank left the interest rate unchanged and increased the size of the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program, in line with analyst expectations.

The ECB extended the bond-buying program to run through March 2022, and the bank’s President Christine Lagarde asserted that the recovery hasn’t yet entered a stable mode and the lower than ideal inflation will take time to recover. The lack of surprise in the ECB policy helped the euro.

The optimism surrounding the vaccine approval-and-rollout has helped global risk sentiments and prompted some follow-through US dollar selling.

The greenback bearish mood continued with the Initial Weekly Jobless Claims falling below expectations. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits touched 853K for the week ended on December 5, rising sharply from the previous week’s revised reading of 716K. Traders worried over the economic impact of the pandemic’s second wave and sold the USD.

The headline CPI ticked up by 0.2 Percent MoM in November, and yearly rate stayed flat at 1.2 Percent, hardly providing any respite for the dollar.

At the time of writing, one Euro buys 1.2129 US dollars, slightly down -0.04% as of 9:35 AM UTC.