The European currency is down marginally ahead of the euro area retail sales report and the ECB meeting, Bloomberg said. Meanwhile, the yen is appreciating.
Retail sales in the eurozone are forecasted to decrease 0.7% in December compared with a jump of 1.4% in the month of November.
Amid inflation slowing down its pace recently, the European Central Bank is expected to keep the benchmark rate steady at the record low of 0.25%.
“The euro is on a path of gradual declines,” said Kikuko Takeda, a senior analyst at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd in London. “The ECB will eventually add to monetary easing, or even if there’s no additional step, it will continue to signal its dovish stance to markets.”
At 9:14 Moscow time, the value of the European common currency dropped to $1.3514 from $1.3519 at the market closure on Tuesday.
The EUR/JPY cross weakened to 137.15 yen compared with 137.41 yen at the end of the prior session.
The yen against the greenback edged up to 101.51 yen from 101.64 yen a day earlier.
At the end of January, the central bank of Russia had to interfere with the foreign exchange trading due to an abrupt decline of the ruble versus the U.S. dollar and the euro.
So, on January 29, the regulator sold the foreign exchange for 58.11 billion rubles, which is the record result since late September 2011, Prime informs.
