httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJEnsaAZpZs

Greek borrowing costs hit an unseen before high yesterday, when compared with those of Germany. Greek and German finance ministers have discussed the country needing more time to attract investors and laid the prospect of debt restructuring on the table. There is a study underway which could show that Greece’s debt levels are unsustainable, if they are then ‘further measures’ could be taken.

An important piece of data today is the EU CPI release at 10am, this comes after the shock UK release on Tuesday where the rate dropped 0.4% unexpectedly.  The expected figure is to stay stable at 2.6% but we shall see if we have learnt our lesson from earlier in the week.  At the moment the euro is still strong from the possibility of another interest rate hike, but has weakened since the sterling euro lows we saw yesterday.  The weakness has come from the first talk from the Irish Government about ‘structured default’, on top of that Moody’s downgraded Ireland’s sovereign rating to just above junk this morning.  As well as the contents of the ECB report which showed that an interest rate hike was warranted in accordance to the ‘upside risks to price stability’. The EU is also seeing their Trade Balance and Japan has Industrial Production tonight.

The general bias for dollar is weakness at the moment, as yesterday saw USDJPY fall to fresh lows.  We will see if today’s announcements continue this bout of flaccidity for the dollar, with CPI expected to remain the same at 0.5% and Industrial production also. The PPI figure was out at less than expected yesterday at 5.8% and that did not help matters, this was followed by Initial Jobless Claims from the US which up to 412k from 379k. This move pushed dollar sterling up to over the 1.636 mark. They have tried to create optimism over the pond, in anticipation of the G20 summit meeting, by assuring that the global recovery was not at risk of being derailed.

Good luck to all those running the marathon this weekend. To sponsor our 2 runners and see some of their unusual training methods check out the World First Facebook page.

Latest exchange rates at time of writing