EUR/USD has popped 30 pips to 1.2455 and looking around there is no real market news behind it. What we have got is an article from Peter Spiegel in the FT (highlighted by @FGoria) where there’s further claims about Draghi’s leadership from the one and only Tim Geitner and transcripts of his book that have been seen by the FT.
Draghi’s famous “whatever it takes” speech, which has gone down as the one saving Europe and the euro, was apparently an impromptu addition more out of panic than a calculated response.
“Geithner: [T]hings deteriorated again dramatically in the summer which ultimately led to him saying in August, these things I would never write, but he off-the-cuff – he was in London at a meeting with a bunch of hedge funds and bankers. He was troubled by how direct they were in Europe, because at that point all the hedge fund community thought that Europe was coming to an end. I remember him telling me [about] this afterwards, he was just, he was alarmed by that and decided to add to his remarks, and off-the-cuff basically made a bunch of statements like ‘we’ll do whatever it takes’. Ridiculous.
Interviewer: This was just impromptu?
Geithner: Totally impromptu…. I went to see Draghi and Draghi at that point, he had no plan. He had made this sort of naked statement of this stuff. But they stumbled into it.”
The full (gated/free sub) article is here and there’s plenty else being spilled in it on Germany’s Schaeuble, among others. I’m not saying it’s directly behind the move currently but it’s yet another mud shot at Draghi’s reputation and despite his presser last week the matter isn’t going away.
