CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) — The euro’s exchange rate is the subject of today’s investment pop quiz:

How much lower do you think the euro is today relative to its levels of three and six months ago, given the results of Italy’s elections earlier this week — which have been described as the “worst possible outcome” for Italy in particular and the euro in general?

It’s a trick question, of course. The euro is actually higher in U.S. dollar terms over both of these periods: 1.3% over the last three months, and 4.5% over the last six months.

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you didn’t get the right answer. Almost everyone else is being taken by surprise, too.

And don’t try to dismiss the euro’s surprising strength on the theory that it’s a mirage created by the even greater weakness of the U.S. dollar. It turns out that relative to gold bullion, the euro also has gained ground over the last three and six months.

To get a handle on what’s causing the euro’s surprising resilience, I turned to John Dessauer, who several decades ago was a multinational banker based in Europe. In recent years, he has been an investment adviser in the U.S., and he currently edits an investment-advisory service entitled John Dessauer’s Outlook.

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I last checked in with Dessauer six months ago, when he was arguing that the euro over the longer term would be stronger than the doomsayers were telling us. Read my Nov. 13 column, “Betting against the euro doom-and-gloomers.”

In an interview earlier this week, Dessauer reiterated what he said six months ago: Predictions to the contrary notwithstanding, the “euro is not a doomed currency.”

To be sure, he acknowledged, the Italians have created a mess, and their debt service costs will go up as a result of their recent elections. “At the end of the day,” however, Dessauer stressed, “the Italians won’t want to get out of the euro, and therefore will recognize that they have no choice but to accept a certain amount of austerity.”

What the media is overlooking, he said, is the longer-term story that can be told that is quite positive for the euro. That story keys off the myriad compromises on fiscal and monetary sovereignty that are happening, little by little, all across the euro zone. The end result of those compromises is that more and more fiscal and monetary authority is being vested in the European Monetary Union.

One result, for example, as Dessauer put it, is that “there really will be a European central bank.”

If you don’t believe him, then Dessauer suggests we look at the currency markets themselves, which contain “some of the smartest minds in the business.” Their collective wisdom, as represented in the exchange rates being set by the open market, is that “there will be no euro collapse.”

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