Investing.com -- EUR/USD surged on Wednesday moving back above 1.12 for the first time in 10 sessions, as Greece inched closer to striking a deal with its creditors and European Central Bank president Mario Draghi triggered a bond rout with market-moving comments.
The currency pair traded in a broad range between 1.1081 and 1.1284, its daily-high, before settling at 1.1276, up 0.0123 or 1.10%. EUR/USD extended the gains from Tuesday's rally when it soared more than 2%, as better than expected inflationary data in the euro zone for May coincided with weak U.S. factory orders. The euro is also up more than 3.6% against its American counterpart since May 26 when it touched down to a monthly-low at 1.0818.
Despite wild fluctuations in the pair throughout the spring, the euro is near its same level from February when the ECB announced the launch of an ambitious €60 billion a month quantitative easing program. Draghi tacitly endorsed the early success of the program on Wednesday by raising the ECB's inflation expectations to an average of 0.3% for the remainder of the year. One of the primary goals of the bond buying initiative at its inception was to stave off prolonged deflation in the euro zone.
Initially, the ECB intended to continue the €1.1 trillion program through September, 2016 if inflation moved toward its targeted goal of 2% and the European economy showed other signs of improvement. When pressed on Wednesday on whether the ECB could end the program sooner than expected, Draghi responded that the ECB could in fact expand the program “if other factors would create an unwanted tightening of monetary policy."
Draghi also triggered a sell-off in European sovereign debt by telling investors they should expect "periods of high volatility," in the bond markets. Germany 10-year bunds soared 17 basis points to 0.88%, its highest level since October. Yields on British, French and Dutch 10-year bonds all rose by at least 10 basis points.
Draghi, however, provided little to no hints on how the ECB could respond to a variety of scenarios related to negotiations with Greece, saying only that he would like to reach a "strong" agreement to settle the impasse.
Greece prime minister Alexis Tsipras, meanwhile, is scheduled to hold another series of talks with the nation's international creditors on Wednesday evening. Greece has described its latest proposal to its troika of creditors as its "last, best offer." Athens officials said Wednesday that it will delay payment on a €305 million obligation to the International Monetary Fund on Friday if a deal is not reached in the next several days. France president Francois Hollande is hopeful that the two sides are only "hours apart" from reaching an accord.
Elsewhere, the bond sell-off in Europe spilled over to U.S. markets as yields on U.S. 10-Year Treasuries spiked 10 basis points to 2.388%, its highest level since November.
The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the strength of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, fell more than 0.5% to 95.33.
USD/CAD gained 0.40% to 1.2451, while USD/JDY rose 0.12% to 124.26.