Euro Stumbles, Investor Sentiment Collapses as Eurozone Outlook Worsens

The European Union single currency Euro slumped Monday, reflecting gloomy investor confidence, slow economic growth, and strong Dollar performance.

The Euro hit the lowest level against the U.S. Dollar of the year Monday, casting into relief the plight fo the sluggish Eurozone with the economic uptick int he United States where the economy is responding well to President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and push for deregulation. The currency slipped 0.5 per cent agains the Dollar Monday, taking the Euro down 1.4 per cent just in the first week of May, reports the Financial Times.

The news comes after investor confidence in the Eurozone dropped for the fourth consecutive month in May, defying expectations of a slight improvement. The Daily Telegraph reports the measure of investor attitude towards the European economic bloc has now hit a fresh 15-month low and that retail sales in Germany, France, and Italy had declined sharply.

Further indicators suggest that the growth experienced by the Eurozone after the last crisis was “petering out”, with the Eurozone recording its slowest growth in 18 months last week.

Meanwhile, the United States is tightening monetary policy — raising interest rates and reducing quantitative easing ahead of the European Union and Japan. The U.S. unemployment count was revealed to have fallen to the lowest rate since the year 2000 on Friday, shortly after the Federal Reserve indicated rising investor confidence, with business investment continuing to “grow strongly”.

The weakening progress of the Eurozone contrasts sharply with Britain’s performance since Brexit, with a revalued pound boosting exports to their strongest level since 2010. The continued uptick is quite in contrast with claims by the Project-Fear dominated Treasury before the Brexit vote which predicted an “immediate and profound shock” to the British economy just for voting against the European Union.

Breitbart London reported in April that national central banks were cutting holdings of the Euro currency in their reserves in favour of the Pound Sterling, reflecting fears over weakening stability. The Pound continues to be seen as a strong long-term investment.

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