Asian session: The euro remained lower

02:00 China Leading Index January +0.4% +1.2%

02:00 New Zealand Expected Annual Inflation 2y from now Quarter I +2.3% +2.3%

05:00 Japan Small Business Confidence February 51.3 50.6

The euro remained lower against most of its major peers from yesterday on bets the European Central Bank may add to monetary stimulus next week.

ECB Executive Board member Peter Praet signaled policy makers have tools ready to maintain price stability. Praet, the central bank’s chief economist, said in an interview with Portugal’s Expresso published on the central bank’s website that “weakness in price development is extending to the medium term.”

Council member Jens Weidmann, who heads Germany’s Bundesbank, signaled more openness to pausing sterilization of the ECB’s now-defunct bond-purchase Securities Markets Program, saying in a Feb. 23 interview that he “wouldn’t rule out” such a move.

In the U.S., the S&P/Case-Shiller index of property prices probably climbed 13.4 percent in December from a year ago after a 13.7 percent increase in the year ended November, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg before the data today.

Norway’s krone and the Australian and New Zealand dollars led monthly gains amid higher commodity prices.

EUR / USD: during the Asian session, the pair traded in the range of $ 1.3725-40

GBP / USD: during the Asian session, the pair rose to $ 1.6670

USD / JPY: on Asian session the pair traded in the range of Y102.45-65

The European calendar gets underway at 0700GMT, with the release of the German Maastricht debt data and the Q4 GDP numbers. The final GDP data is seen unchanged on the quarter at 0.4%. There is a raft of French data at 0745GMT, when the February business climate index is released, along with the February manufacturing and services sentiment surveys. At the same time, the French January housing starts numbers will cross the wires. At 0800GMT, Spain's January PPI data will be published. Italian data due at 0900GMT, with the release of the December retail sales data and the February ISTAT consumer confidence numbers. The sovereign issuance calendar sees auction on both sides of the Atlantic Tuesday.