Currency

The European Central Bank's daily euro reference rates, the only source here that publishes every business day. A rate has a direction, the calendar has holes in it, and a flow converts differently from a balance; each turns one figure into a different reported number.

Almost a third of days have no rate

The ECB fixes on settlement days only: never at weekends, and not on New Year, Good Friday, Easter Monday, 1 May or Christmas. A Sunday transaction still needs a rate, so the daily table carries the last fixing forward and records which one it used. Gaps, retirements and suspensions →

A year's flows at the closing rate misstate them

A balance converts at the closing rate and a flow at the period average. For USD the two differ most in 2003 by 11.7% of the average, which is often more than the margin of the business doing the converting. Spot or average →

The same price, counted in euros and in dollars

From the first half of 2021 to the second half of 2022 the EU's average household price rose 26% in euros and 6% in dollars.

The euro fell against the dollar while European electricity got dearer, so a dollar-based buyer of the same kilowatt-hour saw a much smaller rise. Both numbers are right; a chart of "European electricity prices" with no stated currency is also a chart of the exchange rate. The crisis in both currencies →