Article by ForexTime
The Australian dollar fell to $0.7685, from $0.7723 early, pulling away from a near one-month peak of $0.7844 on Monday after the release of the minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) April policy meeting, even though they largely repeated the RBA’s easing bias.
The euro traded at $1.0720 in Asia on Tuesday, off Friday’s peak of $1.0849. On Monday Greece ordered state entities to park idle cash at the central bank in a scramble to pay its bills ahead of civil services salary payments at the end of April and IMF loan payments early May.
While an unprecedented debt default in the currency bloc could open the way for Greece to exit the euro, ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio said on Monday that a country that defaults would not have to leave the euro.
Even after several rounds of negotiations, market participants are not hopeful Greece will be able to present detailed plans that would satisfy euro zone finance ministers to continue their financial support at their meeting on Friday. That means Greece could be running out of cash by the end of this month.
Oil prices held near their four-month high hit last week, as a report of strong U.S. consumption and a warning from Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry about possible attacks on energy installations there offset earlier comments indicating Saudi production would stay near record levels in April.
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U.S. crude futures stood at $56.34 per barrel, not far from a four-month high of $57.42 hit on Thursday.
The dollar index was steady after having rallied on Monday, trading at 97.95 against a basket of currencies.
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