This Weeks’s currency pair, EURUSD

The ECB hike of last week is the highest hike in past 11 years which brought the interest rate from -0.50% to 0.00%. Further normalization of interest is appropriate, indicating that there will be another hike from ECM on their next meeting on 8th September. Another new program was introduced by the committee of new bond buying called Transmission Protection Instrument to be used if it is needed. TPI will allow ECB to buy bonds in any country which is in Eurozone whose yields may be surging due to unwarranted financial conditions.

Last weeks poor PMI data to the Eurozone with European PMIs showing that manufacturing was slowing. A number of country’s manufacturing readings fell below the 50 level, indicating manufacturing activity is in contractionary territory. For the Eurozone as a whole, the flash Manufacturing PMI was 49.6 vs 52.1 previously, while the flash Services PMI was 50.6 vs 53 previously. This brought the composite number down to 49.4 from 52 in June. On Monday, Germany released its Ifo Business Climate. The reading was 88.6 vs 90.2 in June. The expectations component fell from 85.5 in June to 80.3 in July, its lowest level since April 2020. This seemly confirmed the PMI data.

This week EU will release its flash CPI for July. Expectations are for 8.6% YoY vs 8.6% YoY previously. The core CPI is expected to go up 3.8% YoY from 3.7% YoY previously. If this print continues higher, the ECB will have some bring decisions to make.

The FOMC meets today and tomorrow to discuss interest rate policy. Expectations are that the committee will raise rates by 75bps, which will bring the Fed Funds rate from 1.75% to 2.50%. The last CPI reading for the US was 9.1% YoY. On Friday, PMI data of US was released. The Manufacturing component was 52.3 vs 52.7 in June.

EUR/USD has been moving in a lower channel since Feb 2022. It began moving aggressively by mid-June when it was at 1.1500 and reached 1.0340 which was the low since Jan 2017 but couldn’t break through. On July 14th it broke the level of 1.0000 since then the pair has been consolidating mid-range near 1.0250 as tomorrow’s FOMC meeting looms.

The important thing is that it will be news from FOMC and Core PCE from the US, CPI from the EU, and GDP from both areas, EUR/USD may be in for a volatile week. If the Fed gives a surprise, the pair could break back. If the Fed is concerned about the state of economy or a potential recession, EUR/USD could be back above 1.0340.