Investing.com -- The euro neared a 12-year low against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday, falling below 1.06 as foreign investors continued to shift funds from European to U.S. bonds days after the start of quantitative easing in the euro zone.
One day after Germany's largest bank forecasted parity between the euro and dollar at year's end, EUR/USD fell 1.37% or 0.0147 to 1.0549. For the year, the pair is down more than 20%.One-third of the drop has occurred since last Friday following stronger than expected U.S. employment data in the February jobs report. The creation of 295,000 new U.S. jobs, as well as a 5.5% unemployment rate has heightened concerns that the Fed could raise interest rates by June.
In turn, the U.S. dollar has soared as expectations of an increase of the Fed Funds Rate has coincided with the start of a €60 billion quantitative easing program by the European Central Bank. Next week, The Federal Open Market Committee could remove references of "remaining patient" from its minutes when it meets on Mar. 17-18. The removal typically indicates that an interest rate hike is imminent.
The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of six other major currencies, continued its march toward 100, approaching a level it has not reached in more than a dozen years. In addition, the sharp rise of the dollar index in recent weeks has marked its second-highest appreciation in 40 years. On Wednesday, the index rose 1.23 or 1.25% to 99.84.
In bond markets, major central banks flocked to U.S. government bonds as indirect bids soared 59% at Wednesday's U.S. 10-Year Treasury auction in comparison with February purchases. The spread between U.S. 10-Year Treasuries (2.13%) and German 10-Year bunds (0.03) continued to hover at 25-year highs (2.1), as the bund fell 14.10% on Wednesday. The decline caused further drops in 10-year French and Italian bonds, which each fell by more than 7%.
After the close of U.S. markets on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve rejected the stress tests of the U.S. units of Deutsche Bank (XETRA:DBKGn) and Spanish bank Santander (MADRID:SAN), citing widespread deficiencies with their capital plans.
Elsewhere, tensions remained high between Greece and its euro zone creditors. Ewald Nowotny, a member of the ECB's decision-making Governing Council, warned of the consequence that could result if Greece leaves the euro zone.
"If you think of Greece and a big devaluation of the currency, going out of the euro and having their own currency -- would that be helpful? I doubt it very much," Nowotny told a conference in Frankfurt. "There is just one industry that would be affected, tourism."