For the second time the Spanish government had to confirm that the country does not need a rescue plan at least in the nearest future.
Whether it is reliable or not, it is evident that consequences arising from the problems of 2011 felt throughout the year emerged again and remain urgent.
In fact, regardless the fact that smaller countries like Greece and Portugal are to go forward without outside help, the fact that Spain and Italy are in the focus of the storm is very important, although we believe that with time they will slowly recover their status as top-level economies.
In general, the European landscape is considered as complex at the moment amid the release of China’s GDP of the first quarter. It was expected that the growth of the second world economy will be less than for the same period of 2011, and furthermore, will fall short of those expectations. Of course, with 8.1% growth there is no much room for discussion, and we know that the Asian giant will not fail to be such one by a few tenths of growth lower than expected. But it is clear that the growth is slowed and this is not good for the rest of the world in terms of import to China giving that this is a country where the most basic rights do not exist.
The currency that was mostly affected by the announcement, as we mentioned in the previous day, is the Australian dollar. China is the largest market for Australia, and the Thursday’s rise of the Aussie amid U.S. announcements resulted in a significant drop several hours later.
The remaining hard currency has had significant variations. The euro was fixed in the area of 1.3150 while the pound sterling was located between 1.58 and 1.60. The yen was also stable with no major changes expected during the day.
In terms of currencies related to oil, as the Canadian dollar and Mexican peso it is evident that they have quickly recovered positions along with the rise in WTI future trading at $ 103.90 right now. They are expected to remain in an upward trend for the rest of the day.
During the American session was released the data on the consumer inflation which remained the same - 0 to 0.2% month-on-month. Also at 9:55 was announced the preliminary index of consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan. And finally at 1:00 PM Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed in New York is expected to make a statement. In general this data is not expected to make significant impacts on prices.
