Companies May Have Violated European

(Reuters) - European Commission officials raided the offices of two electricity exchanges on Tuesday following concerns their planned tie up may infringe European competition laws, the companies said. Paris-based EPEX Spot and Norway's Nordpool Spot, which offer short-term electricity trading platforms for French, German, Austrian, Swiss and Scandinavian power, in September announced plans to create a joint exchange which would cover more than half of Europe's spot electricity trades. "Yes, our office was searched today. We expect the raids were carried out in relation to our cooperation with Nordpool Spot," a spokesman for EPEX Spot said. The European Commission said it was concerned the companies may have violated European antitrust rules that prohibit cartels, without giving further ...

Fundamental Analysis EUR "The decline in euro-area December retail sales confirms our view that private consumption is likely to have fallen in the fourth quarter" - James Ashley, senior European economist at RBC Capital Markets Euro zone retail sales declined unexpectedly in December, said the European Union's statistics office Eurostat on Friday. Retail sales fell 0.4 per cent from November after declining by the same amount in October. USD "The report was much better than expected in terms of indicating fundamental strength in the economy" - Pierre Ellis, senior economist at Decision Economics The number of Americans, who have found a job in January rose to nine-month high of 243,000, said the Labor Department on Friday, pushing unemployment rate lower to 8.3 per cent, the lowest ...

The Week Ahead Highlights * USD recovery, risk sell-off likely to continue * Weber comments soften the euro * Australian election this weekend * JPY strength may demand government action * Key data and events to watch next week USD recovery, risk sell-off likely to continue After consolidating for much of this past week, the USD surged again to finish the week at new recent highs. The gains came in the wake of a disappointing US weekly jobless claims report and a shocking drop in the July Philadelphia Fed Index of local manufacturers, which fell to -7.7 from +5.1 in contrast to forecasts of gain to +7.0. USD strength in the face of weaker US data again illustrates the role of the USD as a safe haven currency. As the US outlook continues to deteriorate it spells bad ...