For the second week in a row the five weakest performers were the yen and four of the 'commodity' currencies.
Their common problem was the perception that US interest rates will indeed go up this year and when they do it will dent emerging markets and their demand for raw materials. That belief got a boost on Friday from much stronger than expected US and Canadian employment data.
Not surprisingly the US and Canadian dollars were also boosted by the data, putting in the day's strongest performance. However, their gains were only sufficient to recover the ground lost earlier in the week to the Europeans.
Once again the euro was pipped at the post by an outsider for the title of weekly winner. Last Monday it was the Swiss franc that sneaked into the lead; this time it was the Swedish krona. It was difficult to tell whether investors were buying the euro because they expect the problems of Greece to be sorted out or because the country's exit from the single currency has by now been discounted.
Either way, an unpublicised meeting last Monday evening helped the euro along. The German chancellor hosted the managing director of the International Monetary Fund and the presidents of France, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. It was revealed unofficially afterwards that Greece's five biggest creditors, AKA the Troika, were putting together a 'final offer' to Athens.
The euro responded positively to the news and it barely flinched when the Greek prime minister said on Thursday that he would not be making a scheduled €300 million repayment to the IMF the following day. Instead he will bundle together the four amounts due in June and pay them at the end of the month. Or not.
