Market Rumours

In the absence of GBP/USD recovering above the 1.5850-1.59 zone Barclays Capital says it's sticking with the downtrend. Now at 1.5565 the bank says important support comes in between 1.5545-25 and if this gives way it opens the downside to 1.5275 and 1.4685.

Asian stocks rose for the third day in a row on Thursday, powered by strong economic data from Australia and China, while the euro steadied ahead of a key summit that could lay out a rescue plan for debt-stricken Greece.European Union leaders will lay the groundwork for a financial rescue of Greece at a summit later in the day, but any support is likely to require a big commitment from Athens on getting its economy in order.The meeting is expected to reach a political agreement on helping Greece, while the financial details will be hammered out at a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels on Monday, a senior EU source.Greece's ballooning deficit and debt have reverberated across financial markets in recent months, hitting the euro, regional banking stocks and some government bonds, and prompting many investors to pull back from riskier assets worldwide.The euro edged up 0.4 percent at $1.3777, a day after it shed 0.4 percent on concerns about the fiscal problems facing euro zone countries Greece, Portugal and Spain. It hit a 8-1/2-month low of around $1.3580 last week.

There hasn't been any agreement yet about possible aid for Greece, which is struggling with high debt levels, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel hasn't yet backed any deal, a German government official told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday. "There hasn't been any agreement and no decision," said the official who declined to be identified. "The Chancellor has so far not agreed to any solution." The official added that Germany has a very "clear position" and there will be clarity about the issue of help for Greece in the course of the day. The comments come ahead of Thursday's informal summit of leaders of the 27 member states of the European Union, who are meeting in Brussels to discuss possible help for Greece. Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said in an interview with state broadcaster ORF aired Thursday that EU leaders won't offer Greece any form of soft bailout at their summit meeting in Brussels. Talks are "about loans with interest that can be extended quickly to help a country as quickly as possible so that it doesn't come to turmoil on the financial markets, and to a crisis that no one can control any more," Farmann said. The German official rejected these comments, saying there isn't any agreement.