Euro (FXE) Hits Four-Month Low Against Dollar (UUP)

The Euro (EUR) closed the first trading week of the new year significantly lower against the US Dollar (

) and most of the other major currencies as the sovereign debt crisis of the Euro-zone countries kept outweighing everything else in currency markets. Despite the disappointing job report in the US (up by 103,000 vs. 175,000 expected), the US Dollar was still able to move higher against the troubled Euro, once again underlining just how worried investors are about the European debt issues. Today's headlines were mostly about the Portugal, as rumors suggested that the Swiss National Bank was considering to exclude Portuguese government bonds from the list of eligible collaterals for bank loans. This wasn't exactly what investors needed ahead of next week's bonds auction by Portuguese government. Later the SNB denied the rumors, but the Euro kept sliding, hitting fresh lows across the board. As a result, the EUR/USD fell from 1.3015 to close the week at 1.2908, the lowest level since last September. The Euro fell sharply against the Japanese Yen (

) and the British Pound (GBP) too, as the EUR/JPY tumbled from 108.50 all the way to 106.92 and the EUR/GBP dropped from 0.8424 to 0.8304. Both of the currency pairs closed the week at four month low as well.