Euro/Dollar

That is my own clumsy graphing, assisted by XE.com and an educational website.

The subject of the graph is the fluctuations of the euro against the dollar over the last crisis-ridden year.

I've used an arbitrary date in the middle of each covered month (the 12th) as that month's data point.

How does this correlate with some of the events of the unfolding crises regarding Euro sovereign debt during this period?

Last May and June, when the euro was circa .70, saw German politicians in particular taking a hard stand against assistance for Greece. That stance began to soften a bit in late June, when Merkel agreed to work with the ECB to line up the participation on private investors in a restructuring. It appears that this helped the euro's value, which reached .73 that September.

The markets' attentions shifted to Italy by September, though. That month S&P downgraded seven Italian banks, and there was some fall-back. Then in November, the Italians managed to rid themselves of Silvio Berlusconi and  Mario Monti became the new PM there. Europe's bankers have confidence in Monti, who has a reputation as a competent, boring, technocrat, a good reputation to have at such times, and the value of the euro climbed through December and into January of this year.

The most recent fall-off, since the January peak, may represent more a strengthening of the US dollar than a weakening of the euro.