Euro weaker on retail sales data

The euro weakened Wednesday on new data showing that retail sales in the Eurozone dropped 1.6 percent in December of December 2007 and on concerns that trouble for Eastern European currencies will hurt the shared currency.

Worries were spurred when Fitch Ratings cut Russia’s debt rating, citing declines in oil prices among other issues, and after the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan devalued that nation’s currency by 18 percent, following on the heels of devaluations of the currencies of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

In late morning trade in New York, it took $1.284 or ¥115.1194 to buy a euro, while they yen traded at ¥89.655 to the greenback, while at the same time it took 150.13 Kazak tenge to buy a dollar and the Russian ruble traded at 36.206 to the dollar.

The pound saw gains on a report from the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply that its services index was at 42.5 in January, up from 40.2 in December, indicating that contraction in the UK services sector has slowed.

At just past 11 a.m. in New York, the pound traded at 88.57p to the euro while it was also up versus the US dollar as the greenback traded at $1.4497 to the pound.

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