After the euro hit an intraday low against the dollar near 1.3200, the last few hours have seen the single currency hold steady – if not gain a little ground – on the dollar during the ultra-thin US trading day. The handful of pips the euro has clawed back, though, seems more a result of traders flattening out positions for the weekend rather than any type of stabilisation. Where it stands, the euro is down about 500 pips from the beginning of this week and over 1000 since the US Fed pulled the trigger on the second round of quantitative easing. Since that time, fears of a debt default from one of the peripheral eurozone countries has been the focus. With rumors swirling today that EU officials were pressuring Portugal to take a bailout, the only clear message is the messiness of the situation, and that without some resolution market participants are going to continue punishing not just the debt in question but also, by proxy, the euro. Dan Cook, Chicago