Asian session: The euro fell

02:00 New Zealand Expected Annual Inflation 2y from now IV quarter +2.3% +2.3%

The euro touched a three-week high after the currency bloc’s finance ministers reached agreement on Greece’s debt burden and its funding gap. The 17-nation currency snapped declines against the yen after euro-area finance chiefs and the International Monetary Fund agreed to cut Greece’s interest rates and gave it more time to pay back rescue loans. Ministers from the 17-nation euro bloc started their meeting at 12:30 p.m. in Brussels yesterday, less than a week after an all-night gathering failed to yield agreement and days after a EU summit broke up without a proposed seven-year budget. The updated aid package lowers interest rates on the loans to Greece and sets new debt targets for the country of 124 percent of GDP in 2020 and below 110 percent in 2022. Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said the decision “keeps Greece in the euro.” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the nation will get an extra 15 years to repay loans.

The Japanese currency maintained a three-day gain versus the dollar as expectations eased that Japanese opposition leader Shinzo Abe will push the central bank for more aggressive monetary easing. Abe, a former prime minister and the head of the Liberal Democratic Party, has called for “unlimited” provisions of cash by the Bank of Japan (8301) until inflation reaches as high as 3 percent.