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5 Reasons Why EUR/USD is higher after the Greek

EUR/USD is trading at 1.1250  already reaching 1.1276, over 100 pips from the close on Friday. Since Friday, the Greek crisis went into overdrive, with the breakup of talks, the Greferendum announcement, the rejection of the bailout, the ECB freeze of ELA and the capital controls. A lot of alarming events.

So how come the Sunday gap  was not only filled but surpassed? Here are 5 reasons for the comeback:

  1. EUR is now a funding currency: The ECB not only has an almost zero  lending rate (0.05%) but it also has a negative deposit rate of -0.20%, which basically “punishes” banks for  parking money with it.  The cheap funding means that money moves outside the euro-zone and this has been going on for already more than a year. However, in times of trouble, some of this money is repatriated to Germany and France, thus supporting the euro.
  2. Other safe havens: The traditional safe haven currencies  are  the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. Indeed, the news from Greece gave a big boost to the yen. With money flowing to Japan and back to Europe, the dollar’s safe haven status is a weaker one.
  3. SNB intervention: The  floor of 1.20 under EUR/CHF has been shockingly removed back in January, but the SNB continues intervening to weaken the franc. Specifically today, Thomas Jordan explicitly said that his institution was active in the markets.  So, the Swiss were on the euro bid.
  4. “Door is still open”:  European officials including Moscovici and Dijesselbloem have said that the door to negotiation with Greece is still open. This softened the sense of crisis. Also Merkel and Hollande talked about negotiations, but they  referred to after the Greferendum, which they see as a vote on the euro.
  5. Effect on US rates: Monetary policy divergence  has driven EUR/USD lower – the ECB is printing euros while the Fed is about to raise rates. But if Greece leaves the euro-zone and there are negative effects on other countries, will the Fed be in a rush to raise the rates so fast? The dovish FOMC, led by Yellen,  will likely adopt a “better safe than sorry” approach if Greek jitters, accompanied by Chinese ones pose a risk to the US economy. As with  occasional reaction in stocks, the “bad news is good news”  effect happens: lower chance of Fed tightening is a key element.

What do you think? Any other reasons for the 300+ pips up from the lows?

Greek crisis – all the updates in one place

And here is how it looks on the charts: EUR/USD is trading well above Friday’s levels:

EURUSD June 29 2015 higher than Friday in a comeback here is why

Yohay Elam

Yohay Elam

Yohay Elam: Founder, Writer and Editor I have been into forex trading for over 5 years, and I share the experience that I have and the knowledge that I've accumulated. After taking a short course about forex. Like many forex traders, I've earned a significant share of my knowledge the hard way. Macroeconomics, the impact of news on the ever-moving currency markets and trading psychology have always fascinated me. Before founding Forex Crunch, I've worked as a programmer in various hi-tech companies. I have a B. Sc. in Computer Science from Ben Gurion University. Given this background, forex software has a relatively bigger share in the posts.