EUR/USD surges through 1.1700 handle on Trump’s comments

   “¢   Trump criticizes Fed rate hike moves and prompts fresh USD selling.  
   “¢   Bullard’s comments add to the USD weakness and provide a sharp lift.
   “¢   Technical buying above 100-hour SMA further contributes to the upsurge.

The EUR/USD pair finally broke out of its European session consolidation phase and surged through the 1.1700 handle in the last hour.

Adding to his overnight comments, the US President Donald Trump further criticized the Fed’s monetary policy tightening and exerted some additional downward pressure on already weakening US Dollar.  

The latest leg of a sharp upsurge of around 50-60 pips over the past hour or so could also be attributed to St. Louis Fed President James Bullard‘s dovish comments, saying that the Fed should hold off on hiking further.

Meanwhile, possibilities of some short-term trading stops being triggered, on a move beyond 100-hour SMA, could also be one of the factors contributing to the pair’s strong bid tone.  

With today’s strong up-move, the pair has now recovered around 140-pips from near three-week lows set in the previous session and turned higher for the week, albeit remains below weekly tops touched at the beginning of this week.

It would now be interesting to see if the pair is able to build on the positive momentum or once again meets with some fresh supply near a descending trend-line resistance, forming a part of descending triangle on the daily chart.

Technical levels to watch

Any subsequent up-move is likely to confront strong hurdle near the 1.1745-50 region, which if cleared might negate any near-term bearish bias and might assist the pair to make a fresh attempt to reclaim the 1.1800 round figure mark.

On the flip side, weakness back below the 1.1700 handle now seems to find some fresh buying interest near the 1.1665-60 area, below which bears are likely to regain control and accelerate the slide fall further towards 1.1625 support.