The euro is holding steady after populist Geert Wilders did worse than expected in Dutch elections

LONDON — The euro is hovering around the neutral mark on Thursday morning after the populist PVV performed worse than expected in elections in the Netherlands.

The party of far-right leader Geert Wilders had been forecast by some to win the most seats of any party during the elections, but the PVV looks set to come second once all results are counted, gaining just 20 seats. By contrast, incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD is projected to win 33 seats with 95% of votes counted, nine fewer than in the 2012 election.

This rejection of at least one strand of populism in the eurozone has failed to enthuse currency traders hugely, and the euro is largely unmoved from levels seen on Wednesday evening.

On Wednesday evening, the single currency rallied, taking strength from a fall in the dollar after the US Federal Reserve hiked interest rates and forecast two more rate hikes this year, unchanged from its prior estimate of three in 2017. Only one member of the FOMC — the Minneapolis Fed’s Neel Kashkari — voted against a rate hike.

Around 8.15 a.m. GMT (4.15 a.m. ET) the euro is trading at 1.0722 against the dollar, a fall of 0.09% from the start of trading on Thursday, but around 0.9% up from where it was before the Fed’s announcement.

Here is the chart of its performance since the Fed’s rate hike:Investing.com