FOREX-Euro near 1-month low vs dollar, kiwi tumbles

The euro also looked fragile against the yen near a one-month trough touched the previous day as a potential downgrade of Spain's top "AAA" rating by Standard and Poor's heightened worries about the euro zone's economic outlook. [ID:nLC477283] The euro's fall against the dollar was also partly due to the greenback's gains against the New Zealand dollar, after Standard and Poor's warned that New Zealand's foreign currency debt rating could be downgraded, traders said.[ID:nWEL411681] "Concerns about the sustainability of the economic impact from stimulus plans and the growing fiscal burden worldwide is surfacing after hopes about government spending dominated the market last week," said Masaki Fukui, a senior market economist at Mizuho Corporate Bank. "The market has become sensitive to bad news such as credit outlook downgrading, especially with many investors now considering where they should be repatriating funds from, instead of investing to," Fukui said.
The euro dropped 0.3 percent from late Monday New York trade to $1.3323 , erasing an earlier recovery and falling towards a one-month low of $1.3289 struck the previous day on trading platform EBS. Against the yen, the euro bounced to around 119.15 yen , within reach of a one-month low of 118.66 yen hit on Monday on EBS. Markets expect the ECB to cut key interest rates by 50 basis points to 2 percent on Thursday, a Reuters poll showed. Money market futures on Monday showed investors see a 75 basis point cut, and some were bracing for a full percentage point move. ECBWATCH The dollar edged up 0.2 percent against the yen to 89.42 yen but stayed near a three-week low of 88.89 yen hit the previous day, not far off December's 13-1/2-year trough just above 87 yen. Traders said falling global stock markets revived investor risk aversion and prompted investors to move away from higher-yielding currencies like the Australian and New Zealand dollars to the perceived low risk of the yen. Tokyo shares fell more than 4 percent with Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) tumbling on a report of an operating loss and after concerns about massive credit losses at Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) knocked U.S. shares down the previous day.[.T][.N] KIWI DIVES Germany's ruling coalition reached agreement on Monday on a new economic stimulus package worth 50 billion euros ($67 billion), but the plans have also sparked budget concerns. [ID:nLC492954] Analysts said growing fiscal burdens was a worldwide concern and a potential negative factor for all major currencies, but the euro appeared to be an immediate selling target after Spain became the third euro zone country since Friday to be warned by rating agency S&P that its credit rating is under threat.

"The driver of the market right now is the euro," said a trader at a Japanese bank.

"A falling U.S. stock market is a worry for the dollar, but in the near term the market is likely to focus on the deteriorating economic outlook in the euro zone," the trader said.

As in the case of Ireland and Greece last Friday, S&P said Spain faces a painful rebalancing of its economy and a marked deterioration of its public finances.

The New Zealand dollar tumbled to one-month lows against the dollar and the yen as S&P said the country's revised outlook reflected growing external imbalances in the economy and the need for a fiscal plan to counter the growing current account deficit.