Concern over the Eurozone financial crisis is nearly forgotten, with the euro currency and related exchange traded fund quickly becoming the go-to safe haven bet as Fed policy and now U.S. fiscal problems put the U.S. dollar in question.
The CurrencyShares Euro Trust (NYSEArca: FXE) has gained 1.3% over the past month and is up 3.4% year-to-date, whereas the PowerShares Dollar Bull ETF (NYSEArca: UUP) declined 0.9% in the last month and is down 1.7% so far this year.
The euro currency is this year’s best performer among a basket of 10 developed-market currencies, and the euro’s correlation to 20 of the most traded emerging market currencies fell 40% to its lowest since 2003, reports Jospeh Ciolli for Bloomberg.
“The euro certainly has some appeal, and we’re slightly long,” Adnan Akant, chief investment officer for foreign-exchange at Fischer Francis Trees & Watts Inc., said in the article. “U.S. investors are now pouring money into global assets, selling dollars.”
The euro traded to $1.368 Monday, rallying almost 7% from a five-month low of $1.2746 back in April.
The European bloc is experiencing higher exports. The Eurozone posted a 17.4 billion euro, or $23.8 billion, surplus for August, up from 15.5 billion in September. The positive current account is the difference between exports and imports – higher export demand translates to greater demand for the euro currency to purchase the European goods.