Euro Deepens Losses Following ECB, Lagarde Statements

The euro deepened its losses during Thursday's trading, after the European Central Bank (ECB) left  its key interest rates unchanged and launched a review of the bank's strategy.

At the first meeting of this year, the European Central’s Board of Governors voted to keep the main deposit rate at -0.5 percent, in line with market expectations.

By the end of today's trading, the euro was down 0.4 percent against the US dollar at $ 1.1053. The European currency also fell against the British currency by 0.1 percent to 0.8433 sterling.

The ECB announced that the first review of the bank's strategy since 2013 would be launched, to determine whether the inflation target was still appropriate.

For her part, President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde stressed the decline in the risks to the euro zone economy, noting that the industrial sector is still an obstacle to the growth momentum.

"Today's economic data revealed the stability of consumer confidence in the euro zone economy this month," Lagarde added.

Deutsche Bank chief executive Christian Sewing said the ECB missed an opportunity to exit negative interest rates when the economy was strong.

Sewing added during his participation in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that reducing interest rates to below zero was successful in protecting the currency after the euro zone crisis.

He concluded that the higher the negative rates, the greater the gap between companies and investors who benefit from cheap borrowing and those who see their pension savings eroding.