The euro fell against the dollar on Friday after cautious remarks by President Christine Lagarde and the day after inflation data in the United States caused contradictory movements in the greenback.
Around 10:10 a.m. GMT (11:10 a.m. in Paris), the euro fell 0.38% to 1.1384 dollars.
“The euro’s weakness was exacerbated by very cautious comments from European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde,” added Ebury analyst Matthew Ryan.
Raising interest rates now “will not solve any of the current problems”, such as commodity shortages plaguing industry, ECB President Christine Lagarde noted in an interview with German regional newspapers RND on Friday. .
“On the contrary, if we act too hastily now, the rebound of our economy will be considerably weaker and jobs would be at risk,” she added.
A caution that contrasts with the prospect of a tightening of American monetary policy, while inflation continued to accelerate in January in the United States to reach 7.5% over one year, a record in nearly 40 years. .
This should a priori push the US Federal Reserve (Fed) to raise its rates faster than expected, and therefore strengthen the dollar.
But after having jumped initially on Thursday, the greenback had fallen against the euro to graze the symbolic threshold of 1.15 dollars for one euro, which has not been crossed since October.
“The problem of inflation is global”, and the Fed is not the only one to consider a tightening of its monetary policy, comments Derek Halpenny, analyst at MUFG.
But since this bout of weakness, the dollar has recovered because “the market cannot ignore an upcoming rate hike either” in the United States, he adds.
As a result of these hesitations, the euro-dollar parity is moving more or less to its level at the start of the year (+0.13% for the euro).
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