Euro Posts Wild Swings As Draghi Grilled On QE

The euro jumped to an intraday high during European Central Bank President Mario Draghi's news conference on Thursday, but was quickly sent lower as the ECB boss answered questions on monetary easing. The shared currency rallied to as high as $1.1040 after Draghi said the Governing Council had not discussed an extension of its quantitative easing program at Thursday's meeting. The comment was seen as dashing hopes the central bank would extend the bond purchases beyond March 2017, which many economists have built into their forecasts. However, shortly after, Draghi also said the bank has no plans to abruptly end the QE program, swiftly taking the euro off its high, to $1.0966. The euro bought $1.0975 late Wednesday in New York. Other markets were also reacting to Draghi's comments. The yield on the German 10-year bund , considered the eurozone's benchmark bond, rose as high as 0.074% before falling back to 0.035% in recent trade. The Stoxx Europe 600 index pared losses to 0.3%, while the S&P 500 opened 0.2% lower.