By Veselin Petkov, Alpari
This morning, in the run-up to the opening of the European session, EURUSD is trading at around 1.16875, in other words, almost at the same level as yesterday morning. As I wrote earlier, I do not expect any big changes in the major currency pairs before the ECB monetary policy meeting, the results of which will be published tomorrow at 16:30 (GMT+3).
However, looking at the fundamentals, the potential for pressure on the euro by the dollar is increasing. According to IHS Markit reports for the European and American economy for July, which were published yesterday at 11:00 (GMT + 3) and 16:45 (GMT + 3) respectively, the Eurozone GDP growth rates will continue to lag behind the US GDP growth rate in the near future. IHS Markit forecasts that in the third quarter of 2018, the Eurozone’s GDP growth will be approximately only 0.4% in quarterly terms, and the US GDP – 0.7% QoQ.
Therefore, I suppose that if tomorrow the ECB does not present any surprises, then very soon the pressure on the euro by the dollar will be felt, and the EURUSD pair will slowly go south.
Today it would be a good idea to pay attention to the following macroeconomic data:
- 13:00 UK: CBI distributive trades survey – realized (MoM) (Jul).
- 17:00 US: new home sales (MoM) (Jun).
EURUSD:
On the hourly timeframe (H1), EURUSD has been trying to recover from the potential downwards trend since yesterday:
Free Reports:
Get Our Free Metatrader 4 Indicators - Put Our Free MetaTrader 4 Custom Indicators on your charts when you join our Weekly Newsletter
Get our Weekly Commitment of Traders Reports - See where the biggest traders (Hedge Funds and Commercial Hedgers) are positioned in the futures markets on a weekly basis.
The chart shows that the EURUSD pair has lately been fluctuating near the trend line (green circle on the chart).
At the moment, it’s very difficult to predict how the EURUSD pair will behave before the ECB meeting set to take place in the next 30 hours. Theoretically, looking at the fundamentals, if we consider that the growth rate of the US’ GDP is likely to outpace the European growth rates in the coming months, the dollar should put pressure on the euro. Also, by looking at the charts, it appears as though the bearish setup (H1) on the EURUSD pair remains. For the last 24 hours so far nothing has changed, hence, most likely, the EURUSD pair will decline. However, the ECB meeting on monetary policy is ahead, and the EURUSD pair could behave very chaotically in the lead-up to the meeting. As mentioned previously, the EURUSD pair is facing strong resistance at 1.1824.
I would wait for the ECB meeting to wrap up and after that, if the ECB does not change its rhetoric on monetary policy, I would consider, in all likeliness, shorting the EURUSD pair.
Source: Overview of the Forex market (25/07/18)
