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ECB Considering Halting Euro Rally - Times Of London
Sunday June 8, 11:43 pm ET


TOKYO (Dow Jones)--The European Central Bank's governing council is considering intervening in the currency markets to rein in the rapid rise of the euro if the currency climbs to levels above $1.30, according to Monday's online edition of The Times of London newspaper.


At least one senior member of the ECB council has canvassed the prospect that the central bank will wade into the markets to restrain the euro if its ascent against a weakening dollar continues, the newspaper reported.

It is understood that the council member, the governor of a leading national central bank, openly discussed the prospect of intervention during recent private meetings.

The key ECB official, who plays a leading role in setting the central bank's strategy, is understood to have strongly implied it would be keen to halt the euro's rally if the currency rises to levels between $1.33 and $1.35, the report said.

Having shot above its January 1999 launch value, the euro hit a record high of $1.1932 on May 27, taking its gains against the dollar this year to more than 13%.

The governor noted that after the dollar's last prolonged slide, in the mid- 1990s, $1.33 to $1.35 was around the level at which the rise of the German mark, in euro equivalent terms, had begun to be halted.

Economists and strategists said such a view within the ECB was highly plausible.

Nick Parsons, senior currency strategist at Commerzbank AG, said the ECB's published estimates of the euro's fair value were in a range averaging about $1.10. The ECB last intervened in 2000 when the euro fell more than 25 cents below that level, to below $0.85, a key level also mentioned by the ECB official.

Parsons said it would therefore make sense if intervention were considered following a rise of a similar scale from this average fair value - to around $ 1.35, The Times reported.

"It is not surprising to hear people semi-publicly mulling this over," Parsons said. However, he said intervention would make sense only once the ECB had exhausted most of its interest rate ammunition, with rates below 1%. Last week, the ECB cut rates by a half-point to 2%.

"Intervention would be a logical policy response once they had exhausted all the other policy options," Parsons added.

The newspaper also said that a main reservation expressed by the governor over any intervention was whether U.S. support for an operation could be secured. He is understood to have noted that the scale of the U.S.' current account deficit could make Washington reluctant to halt a dollar correction that would help to alleviate this problem.

While the euro's sharp appreciation is piling pressure on the embattled eurozone economy's manufacturing sector, the dollar's decline is a boon for American industry.

John Snow (News), the U.S. Treasury Secretary, has signaled the Bush Administration's tacit welcome for a weaker dollar through a series of thinly veiled remarks to the media.






RE: ECB Considering Halting Euro Rally