USD
- The Fed left interest rates unchanged as expected at the last meeting with basically no change to the statement.
- Fed Chair Powell stressed once again that they are proceeding carefully as the full effects of policy tightening have yet to be felt.
- The US Core PCE yesterday came in line with forecasts with the disinflationary progress continuing steady.
- The labour market is starting to show weakness as Continuing Claims are now rising at a fast pace and the recent NFP report missed across the board.
- The latest US PMIs came basically in line with expectations with a miss in the Manufacturing index and a beat in the Services measure.
- The US Consumer Confidence this week beat expectations although the details about the labour market continued to weaken.
- The hawkish Fed members recently shifted their stance to a more neutral position.
- The market doesn’t expect the Fed to hike anymore.
EUR
- The ECB left interest rates unchanged as expected as the central bank has ended its tightening cycle.
- President Lagarde highlighted the weakness in the Eurozone economy and reaffirmed that rates will make a substantial contribution to curbing inflation.
- The Eurozone CPI yesterday missed expectations across the board as the progress on the inflation front continues steady.
- The labour market remains historically tight with the unemployment rate remaining unchanged at 6.5%.
- The recent Eurozone PMIs missed across the board as the economy continues to struggle.
- The ECB members continue to repeat that they will keep rates steady as long as necessary to get inflation back to target.
- The market doesn’t expect the ECB to hike anymore.
EURUSD Technical Analysis – Daily Timeframe
On the daily chart, we can see that EURUSD probed above the key resistance around the 1.0950 but sold off soon after from the 1.10 handle. This is where the sellers are piling in with a defined risk above the resistance to position for a drop into new lows. The buyers, on the other hand, will want to see the price continuing higher and break decisively the resistance zone to start targeting the cycle high at 1.1275.
EURUSD Technical Analysis – 4 hour Timeframe
On the 4 hour chart, we can see that we had a strong divergence with the MACD right into the key resistance. This is generally a sign of weakening momentum often followed by pullbacks or reversals. In this case, it was a signal for the sellers that the price could start to reverse soon. The first target should be the base of the divergent formation around the 1.0830 level where we can also find the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level for confluence. The buyers, on the other hand, will likely lean on that support zone to position for a rally into new highs.
EURUSD Technical Analysis – 1 hour Timeframe
On the 1 hour chart, we can see that there’s not much to do now other than just waiting for the drop into the support zone. In case we see a pullback here, the sellers are likely to lean on the downward trendline around the 1.0930 level and keep targeting the 1.0830 support zone with a further break lower likely triggering a selloff into the 1.0650 level. Alternatively, the sellers could also increase their bearish bets into the support if the price breaks below the recent low at 1.0880 but the risk to reward would be worse.
Upcoming Events
Today, the main event will be the release of the US ISM Manufacturing PMI which missed expectations by a big margin the last time. A strong report is likely to give another boost to the US Dollar while weak figures could weigh on the greenback in the short term.