■ EUR/USD records 1.9% weekly gain

■ Oil adds 7.9% during week, returning it to highest level since December

■ Global equity opened Friday's session negative, as Bloomberg services encountered difficulties

■ Global equity records significant losses Friday,

■ S&P500 (SPY) drops -1% during week

■ DAX concludes 5.5% weekly drop

Early on during the year, on January 22nd, ECB president Mario Draghi announced an EUR 60 bln per month “expanded asset purchase programme” scheduled to span at least until September 2016.  While the initial goal may have been the stimulation of the European economy and perhaps the occasional hastening of lagging European inflation, like most medicine, this too has its side effects. While the weakening of the Euro can be traced back to earlier than the start of the year, Draghi’s boost has so far been more than evident in 2015.

After depreciating by nearly 12% vs. the USD in 2014, EURUSD is now down about 11% this year. Changing perspective to EURGBP results in a similar nearly 7% depreciation of the Euro vs. the Pound sterling in 2014, vs. another 7% or so in 2015. EURJPY is the odd one out, at least concerning 2014, with Abenomics implying nearly no change in 2014, rebounding to an approx. 11% depreciation of the EUR thus far into 2015.

Examining annual high and low points for the aforementioned pairs also positions the Euro in a clear, consistent and ongoing negative trend. End of day High points in 2015 for the EURUSD both and EURJPY were recorded on January 1st. The annual high for EURGBP was recorded a mere 5 days later. Examining low points for the year suggest that the depreciation of the Euro is lost some steam lately, with the EURGBP hitting its annual low more than a month ago, on March 11th and the EURUSD doing so two days later.

With that a given, it's easy to interpret Draghi's comments in last week's ECB rate announcement as resulting from increasing global pressure by those concerned with their currency's appreciation: The ECB didn't introduce additional measures to its program. Moreover, it saw Draghi point out improvements in the European economy and, subsequently, indicators of inflation, advocating for the programme, and, perhaps, implying it will indeed end on time. When summarizing, Draghi defended the current policy implemented by the ECB, saying that "The full implementation of all our monetary policy measures will provide the necessary support to the euro area recovery and bring inflation rates towards levels below, but close to, 2% in the medium term."

Asset prices move against their long term trends

The imbalance in the ECB's current agenda has reflected quite blatantly at the Euro's trading during this last week. This includes a 1.9% weekly increase of EURUSD, to 1.0806 – the largest weekly gain during the last four weeks.

Other asset prices have also moved against their recent longer term trends; Oil prices have recorded a significant 7.9% gain. At USD 55.74, the price of a barrel is as high as it were approx. four months ago, at the end of December. Similarly, equity prices have had a rather negative week. Some of it can be pin-pointed to macroeconomic news, such as disappointing U.S. March Industrial Production data and weak Empire State Index. The S&P500 lost 1% of its value during the week. The FTSE 100 lost 1.3% during the week and the DAX concluded no less than a 5.5% weekly drop. Duly noted, the ripple from a crash in Chinese stocks, early Friday, was the catalyst for much of these negative