Euro (FXE) Moves Higher After ECB Comments

The Euro (EUR) recovered from intra-day lows against the US Dollar (USD) after the European Central Bank member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi made some pretty hawkish comments about the rate hikes. He hinted that the expected rate hike in April could become only the first of several possible hikes by the ECB. While the rate hike at the next ECB meeting has already been expected for some time now, markets were mostly pricing in one rate hike in April, with near future remaining unclear. Those comments, therefore, boosted the European currency as markets started to price in the possibility of several rate hikes by the end of this year. Of course, one suggestion by a monetary official does not make that a done deal, but nevertheless, it helped the Euro to record decent gains against number of currencies, including the Japanese Yen (JPY) and the British Pound (GBP). The EUR/USD rebounded from the daily lows of 1.4051 to 1.4146 before retreating slightly and closed the trading day at 1.4125. The EUR/JPY also moved higher from 116.60s to above 117, and the EUR/GBP jumped from 0.8760 to 0.88.