SINGAPORE- The euro tumbled to a fresh 22-month low on the dollar and hit multi-year troughs on the yen, Swiss franc and sterling as war in Ukraine drove up commodity prices and stoked fears of a stagflationary shock that would hurt Europe most of all.
The common currency dropped as much as 0.6 percent to $1.0864 in early Asia trade, its lowest since May 2020, opening the way to its 2020 trough around $1.0636.
It fell below one Swiss franc, hitting 0.9982, for the first time since the Swiss quit their euro peg in 2015.
Oil futures, which surged more than 20 percent last week, leapt 10 percent as the United States and Europe mull bans on Russian imports. European gas prices already hit a record on Friday.
“This is very bad news for global growth — particularly Europe, given their dependence on gas from Russia,” ANZ analysts said in a note.
“All up, it’s another big, ugly supply shock on top of lingering COVID impacts, with serious inflationary consequences that give central banks absolutely no room to ‘give growth a chance’.”
Fighting intensified over the weekend and attempts at a ceasefire to allow civilians to evacuate from the besieged city of Mariupol seem to have so far failed.
Russia calls the campaign it launched on Feb. 24 a “special military operation” and says it has no plans to occupy Ukraine.
As the euro fell to a 15-month low of 124.78 yen and touched its lowest since mid-2016 on the pound at 82.23 pence, commodity currencies rose with export prices.
