Euro slips in Asia

The euro took something of a hit on Monday as Greek coalition parties dithered on approving the terms for a new bailout with a deadline just hours away, raising worries the whole rescue scheme could flop. Greece's coalition members must tell the European Union by noon on Monday (1000 GMT) whether they accept the painful terms of a new bailout worth 130 billion euros in order to avoid a disorderly default, with euro zone ministers postponing a meeting planned for Monday due to the delay in Athens.
"There are so many hurdles before they reach a deal, with so many sticking points," said Minori Uchida, senior currency analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. The single currency shed 0.4 percent in early Asian trade to stand at $1.3105, having fallen as far as $1.3075 in thin early trade. Immediate support is seen at $1.3078, its 55-day moving average, ahead of $1.3023 - its February 1 trough.
Against the yen, the euro fetched 100.31 yen, down 0.5 percent from New York's 100.81. On the Australian and New Zealand currencies, it hovered just above record lows set on Friday. Still, the euro's pullback is shallow by any measure with many market players still believing that Athens and the "troika" of lenders will clinch a last minute deal to avoid a disorderly default.
"The belief is that a deal will get over the line, more than likely at the last possible moment. That's why we're seeing some renewed buying from the lows," said David Scutt, a trader at Arab Bank in Sydney. Worries about Greece overshadowed Friday's confidence-boosting US jobs data, which showed the world's biggest economy created jobs at the fastest pace in nine months in January. That took the unemployment rate to a three-year low of 8.3 percent.
But Junya Tanase, currency strategist at J.P. Morgan Chase in Tokyo, said the dollar would remain under pressure against the Japanese yen despite its initial reaction to the US job data. Against a basket of major currencies, the greenback popped back above 79.000, with the euro struggling a bit this morning. But it stayed near a two-month trough of 78.623 plumbed on February 1.
The Australian dollar slipped from a six-month high hit on Friday after surprisingly soft Australian retail sales data kept alive expectations of a rate cut by the Australian central bank on Tuesday. The Australian dollar fell 0.4 percent to $1.0725, slipping from a six-month high of $1.0794 marked on Friday. Most analysts also expect the RBA to cut rates by 25 basis points to 4.00 percent.