News Tonight

The euro, down by 0.9%, has landed close to a recent low of $1.4285 on the Electronic Broking Services trading platform today. The fall resulted in a break below the euro’s 21-day moving average, signaling that concern over the euro zone’s ability to tackle the Greek debt crisis continues.

The ongoing market jitters over the Greek debt crisis have continued because of a recent failure by euro zone ministers to reach an agreement on how to tackle the Greek debt crisis. The euro zone finance ministers had met on Tuesday, but were unable to agree on how private holders should share the costs of a second Greek bailout.

This failure caused Moody’s, the American credit rating agency, to threaten many large French banks with possible downgrades because of their high exposure to Greece’s toxic debts.

Moody’s rating agency said that it would be reviewing the credit ratings for France’s biggest bank, BNP Paribas SA, as well as for Societe Generala SA and Credit Agricole SA.

According to Teppei Ino, a currency analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, "The problem is not the fact that Greece is likely to face some form of a default. The problem is that the debate over the involvement of private investors in the rescue scheme drags on, making market participants jittery”.