KUWAIT, April 15 (KUNA) -- The foreign exchange markets had mixed performances last week as negative news out of Europe resurfaced, alongside disappointing job market figures from the US, a specialized economic report showed Sunday.

"In Europe, German bond auction bids reached 4.1 billion Euros, falling short of the 5 billion Euros target. On the other hand, Italy's cost of borrowing rose in its three-year bond auction, as it paid a rate of 3.89 percent on its one-year treasury bills up from 2.76 percent last month," reads the report, issued by the National Bank of Kuwait.

In the US, disappointing figures from the job market shook the markets, as a 2-week consecutive drop in equity markets and worse-than-expected consumer sentiment resulted in a broad sell-off of the US Dollar across all the G10 currencies.

Meanwhile, talks continue as to whether the Fed will intervene to spur an unconvincing growing US economy at its next meeting at the end of April.

The Euro opened at 1.3100 then dropped to 1.3030 only to find support and rally back to close the week at 1.3080. Markets continue to disregard the latest bond auctions and the Euro collapsed at the end of the week as Spanish yields breached the 6 percent mark.

"The Sterling Pound opened the week at 1.5890, rising slowly as talks of a US quantitative easing program resurfaced, only to drop to 1.5806 as European fears escalate. The Pound erased it losses, reaching a high of 1.5984 on positive retail sales data. The Pound then followed the Euro, dropping at the end of the week, to close at 1.5846," the report added.

The Japanese Yen opened the week at 81.54. After trading as low as 80.57, the currency rallied on rumors that the Bank of Japan is considering to boost its asset buying and loan program by 5 Trillion Yen on its April 27 monetary policy meeting.

According to the Federal Reserve's Beige book, the US economy continued to expand at a modest to moderate pace from mid-February through late March across the twelve Federal Reserve Districts.

"Manufacturers expressed optimism about the near-term growth prospects, but were concerned about rising petroleum prices. Additionally, hiring was steady and showed a modest increase while retail spending was positive across the US," it added.

Moreover, the US trade deficit narrowed to 46 Billion US Dollars in February, down from 52.5 Billion US Dollar in January, after imports fell by 2.

7 percent to 227.2 Billion US Dollars and exports rose by 0.1 percent to an all-time high of 181.2 Billion US Dollars.

According to a report from the Commerce Department, Imports from China were down by 18.2 percent with oil imports dropping to the lowest level since 1997. The Exports to Canada rose to 7.2 percent and exports to European Union nations were up 6.7 percent despite Europe's economic slowdown.

As for the precious metals, the report noted that the gold had a strong rally from a level of USD 1,630 towards USD 1,679, following news that the US Federal Reserve will have another round of quantitative easing program.

"However, gold dropped back towards the USD 1,670 after China's GDP data came out indicating that the market has cooled to its slowest pace in 11 quarters," it pointed out.