Greenback strengthened against the major currencies.
Asian and European trading sessions:
Euro: The EUR/USD pair continued to drop today during both sessions, renewing new minimums. The couple established its daily low at $1.3385 area and then straightened back to test the $1.3500 mark.
US Dollar: Yesterday’s decision of the FOMC Committee revealed that the FRS was not going to start the QE program. Instead, the FOMC announced the ”Twist” operation, when the long-term Treasury bonds for amount of $ 400 billion were supposed to be bought by the end of June 2012 with the following sale of the short-term Treasury bonds for the same amount.
As a consequence, the dollar strengthened against all major currencies and brought down all its pairs AUD/USD, EUR/USD, GBP/USD to their annual lows.
British Pound: From the beginning of the Asian session the GBP/USD pair traded lower and tested its new annual lows in the region of $1.5326 during the European session.
Japanese Yen: The USD/JPY pair lost its previously won positions and accelerated its downwards movement. Minimums were reached at the Y76.116.
New-Zealand Dollar: New-Zealand dollar weakened after the released data, that the national economic growth almost stopped.
American trading session:
Euro: During the American trading session the Euro managed to rehabilitate and the EUR/USD pair returned to the $1,3550 mark. The news that the EC would speed up the recapitalization of the 16 European banks supported the euro.