NEW YORK: The euro crept higher against the dollar Tuesday despite weak data on Germany, Europe's largest economy, and a lowered global growth outlook from the International Monetary Fund.
US and European stock markets and oil prices tumbled Tuesday as investors worried about the slowing global economy after the IMF lowered its global growth outlook, warning of stagnation in advanced economies.
It trimmed this year's growth to 3.3 percent, down from its July estimate of 3.4 percent, and projected 2015 growth of 3.8 percent, down from 4.0 percent.
The 18-nation eurozone growth forecast was slashed to a modest 0.8 percent this year, from a July estimate of 1.1 percent, and lowered two-tenths percentage point to 1.3 percent in 2015.
New official data on Tuesday showed that industrial production in Germany, the driving force of the eurozone, had suddenly slumped 4.0 percent in August.
The report came a day after statistics office Destatis said that German factory orders had dived 5.7 percent in August.
"August's big drop in industrial production all but confirmed that German industry is back in recession and underlined the need for both the European Central Bank and the German government to give the eurozone's biggest economy much more policy support," said Capital Economics economist Jonathan Loynes.
Investors were expected to pore over the Federal Reserve's release Wednesday of minutes of its September monetary policy meeting for signs of how quickly the central bank will begin to raise near-zero interest rates, generally expected in mid-2015.
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