European session review: EUR weakens against most major rivals

EUR weakened against most other major currencies in the European session on Wednesday as market participants continued to assess the latest news on the coronavirus and the EU macro reports. The European single currency fell against USD, JPY, GBP, and CHF, but it rose against AUD and CAD.

According to data, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the total number of global cases now stands at 874,081. Meanwhile, U.S. cases of COVID-19 have topped 189,600. The mounting cases deepened the gloom over the potential impact of the coronavirus epidemic on the world economy, as it caused shutdowns across the globe.

Additional pressure on EUR came from the IHS Markit's report, which showed that Eurozone's manufacturing activity contracted at the fastest pace in more than seven years in March amid the coronavirus outbreak. The IHS Markit Eurozone Manufacturing PMI fell to 44.5 from 49.2 in February. That was below the earlier flash reading and the lowest reading since July 2012. Output, new orders and purchasing all fell sharply, whilst jobs were cut markedly, and supply-side constraints intensified at a record pace, the report said.

Meanwhile, the European Commission (EC) proposed a new short-time work scheme called "SURE" to address the impact of coronavirus. The EC president Ursula von der Leyen tweeted: "This is European solidarity in action! EU Commission proposes the new short-time work scheme SURE to help the most affected EU countries, including IT & ES. This will save millions of jobs during the crisis & allow us to quickly restart Europe's economic engine afterwards."