American focus : the euro rose

The euro rose against the U.S. dollar on the background data on the U.S. housing market . Data from the National Association of Realtors showed that home sales in the secondary market fell in January by 5.1 % to a seasonally adjusted annual rate reached 462 thousand add that recent decline was the fifth in the last six months , lowering the annual rate to its lowest level in 18 months. Economists had forecast that sales in January to fall to the level of 4.73 million units, compared to 4.87 million in December. Compared with the same period last year, sales were also down by 5.1%. " Last deterioration was only partly due to the cold weather ," said Lawrence Yun , chief economist for the National Association of Realtors . Sales fell in all four regions of the U.S. , but the biggest drop was seen in the West - in the warmest region . Furthermore, the expert added that other factors are likely to have a slowdown in the housing market , including a shortage of properties for sale , higher prices than a year earlier , rising mortgage rates and rising insurance premiums from flooding.

The yen fell against the dollar, which , in part, was associated with a protocol of the meeting of 21-22 January . They showed that the members of the Board of the Bank of Japan 's monetary policy predict that the country's economic recovery will continue. The Council added that the risks to the recovery remain , especially from commodity exporters, the European debt situation and the pace of recovery in the U.S.. Council members also said that inflation seems to be growing, making progress in the completion of a long period of deflation. Meanwhile , we add that the growth forecasts by the central bank for fiscal year 2013 unchanged at 2.7 percent, while the forecast for 2014 fiscal year has been revised downward to 1.4 percent from 1 , 5 percent. Gross domestic product is forecast to grow at a steady pace in 2015 - at the level of 1.5 percent. Inflation forecast of the Bank of Japan also remained unchanged. Core CPI is estimated to increase by 0.7 percent in fiscal 2013 and 3.3 percent in fiscal year 2014 . The rate of inflation will be moderate - at 2.6 percent in fiscal year 2014 .