Forexpros – The U.S. dollar remained steady against its major counterparts on Tuesday despite French downgrade fears being lifted.
During late session U.S. trade, the greenback traded slightly lower against the euro, with EUR/USD gaining 0.15% to hit 1.2784.
The single currency was supported as rating agency Fitch stated it would not downgrade France in 2012.
However, the agency reiterated its warning for a possible Italian downgrade soon.
Earlier, Merkel warned Greece that it would be impossible to provide additional aid without swift progress on its second rescue package that includes a write down on Greek debt from private creditors.
Markets remained nervous as investors await the outcome of a meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and International Monetary Fund’s President Christine Lagarde to discuss Greek’s possible bailout.
The U.S. dollar was down against the pound, with GBP/USD adding 0.10% to hit 1.5442.
Philippe Hildebrand’s resignation from Chairman of the Swiss Central Bank was caused by controversy over a currency trade supposedly made by his wife just weeks prior to the central bank imposing a minimum exchange rate on the franc against the euro.
The greenback was lower against the yen and Swiss franc with USD/JPY off by 0.03% to 76.82 and USD/CHF slipping 0.07% to hit 0.9489.
Last week, The Institute for Supply Management stated that its non manufacturing purchasing manager’s index only climbed 0.6 points in December, missing analyst’s estimates of 1.0 points.
In addition the greenback was lower against its Canadian, Australian and New Zealand cousins with USD/CAD dropping 0.67% to hit 1.0165, AUD/USD gaining 0.81% to hit 1.0321 and NZD/USD adding 0.84% to 0.7938. .
The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, gave back 0.21% to hit 81.14.
Investors are awaiting euro zone GDP on Wednesday.
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