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EUR/USD Forecast, Majors

EUR/USD Forecast Sep. 21-25

EUR/USD  eventually closed lower after hitting the highs in a very turbulent. Will it make a second attempt to rise or is it heading down?    A busy week starting with the Greek elections and featuring a speech by Draghi awaits us.  Here is an outlook for  the highlights of this week and an updated technical analysis for EUR/USD.

In the euro-zone, the Chinese crisis was felt via a weak business sentiment score in Germany.  Also inflation is  looking more subdued than initially reported. In the US, the Fed refrained from raising the rates and seemed concerned about the global economy. While  the  dovishness certainly hurt the US dollar at first, investors turned their worries to who’s next: which other central banks will go dovish, and the ECB is certainly a prime candidate. The euro fell towards the close and ended lower on the week.  We’ll hear from Draghi this week. Let’s start:

[do action=”autoupdate” tag=”EURUSDUpdate”/]

EUR/USD daily graph  with support and resistance lines on it. Click to enlarge:

EURUSD technical analysis September 21 25 euro dollar fundamental outlook sentiment

  1. Greek elections: Sunday, results due before markets open. The population in Greece is going to the polls for the third time this year, after SYRIZA was swept into power in January and the referendum in July. Former PM Alexis Tsipras was forced to  resign after his party split over the capitulation to the creditors’ demands, a move that culminated in the third bailout. His party is neck to neck with center right New Democracy. At the moment, both parties are pro memorandum. Any  decisive victory is euro positive, as it promises continuity, while a hung  parliament, which is definitely an option, would trigger heightened uncertainty.
  2. German PPI: Monday, 6:00. Producer prices feed into consumer prices and  this is another indicator of inflation. After no change in July, a drop of 0.3% is predicted in August, partially  due to falling oil prices.
  3. Bundesbank monthly report: Monday, 10:00. Germany’s influential central bank publishes a monthly report about the current state of the economy and the  outlook for the next months. It will be interesting to see if they refer to global concerns, just as the Fed did.
  4. Consumer Confidence: Tuesday, 14:00. This official measure by Eurostat showed pessimism among consumers, with a score of -7 points in August, lower than in previous months. The same figure is predicted now.
  5. Flash PMIs: Wednesday: 7:00 for France, 7:30 for Germany and 8:00 for the whole euro-zone. According to Markit’s  final read for August, the French manufacturing sector was still in contraction territory, with a score of 48.3 points, below the 50 point threshold separating  growth from contraction. A small rise to 49.2 points is on the cards now. For the services sector, an advance from 50.6 to 50.9 points is expected. Germany, the continent’s locomotive, enjoyed a positive score of 53.3 points in August. A slide to 52.8 points is predicted now for the manufacturing sector. Services are also expected to drop from 54.9 to 54.5 points. For the whole euro-zone, manufacturing carries expectations for a small slide from 52.3 to 52.2 points, while services could see a drop from 54.5 to 54.1.
  6. Mario Draghi speaks: Wednesday, 13:00. The  president of the ECB already degraded the euro to a second tier currency with his dovish moves in early September. He changed the  conditions for QE and left the door open for more. It seems that he waited for the Fed. And now that Yellen was dovish as well, could Draghi set a pessimistic tone and talk about imminent moves to extend QE beyond September 2016 and enhance the buys beyond €60 billion per month? His words will be watched closely.
  7. German GfK Consumer Climate: Thursday, 6;00. This survey of around 2000 consumers was advancing quite nicely, but disappointed last month with a slip below 10 points, to 9.9. Yet another fall is predicted for September, to 9.8 points.
  8. German Ifo Business Climate: Thursday, 8:00. Germany’s No. 1 Think Tank has a  significant influence. After ZEW already showed a decline in confidence, also this business survey is likely to follow. A drop from 108.3 to 107.8 is on the cards.
  9.  TLTRO: Thursday, 9:15. The ECB’s targeted long term refinancing operations, or targeted loans to banks, stood on 73.8 billion euros in June. The idea is that these cheap loans are granted on the condition that they are lent to the real economy. The bigger the take, the less the need for outright bond buying, QE. A lower take means  a bigger need for QE and more pressure on the euro.
  10. Belgian NBB Business Climate: Thursday, 13:00. Despite coming from a small country, the survey is watched as a bellwether for the rest. A score of -5.1 points was seen in August, below expectations. A small improvement is likely now, to -4.7 points, but this still reflects worsening conditions looking forward.
  11. Jens Weidmann talks: Friday, 7:00 and 16:30. The president of the Bundesbank speaks in Florence. He leads the hawkish camp in the ECB. If he repeats the hawkish stance and no urgency for QE, this may be shrugged off. But, if he offers more action to face the downturn, he could hit the euro.
  12. ECB Monetary data: Friday, 8:00. The ECB’s loose monetary policy did achieve some results in triggering more loans and accelerating the growth of money in circulation. M3 Money Supply is expected to rise from an annual growth rate of 5.3% to 5.4%. Private loans moved up from 0.9% to 1.1%.

* All times are GMT

EUR/USD Technical Analysis

Euro/dollar  began the week slowly but shot up, eventually hitting the 1.1460 level (mentioned last week). From there it changed course and hit 1.13 back again, closing lower on the week.

Live chart of EUR/USD: [do action=”tradingviews” pair=”EURUSD” interval=”60″/]

Technical lines from top to bottom:

Due to extreme volatility, we start from higher ground this time: 1.1875 was the low seen in 2010 and also capped the pair earlier this year. The August high of 1.1712 is the next line.

1.1680 capped the pair in January on its way down.  The next line is a clear separator of ranges: 1.1535. It was last seen in January as well.

The very round 1.15 level is of importance thanks to its psychological role. It is closely followed by 1.1460 that served as resistance earlier in the year.

The historic line of 1.1373 (from November 2003) still  has a role as resistance. 1.13, the round number,  showed its strength in capping a recovery attempt in early September.

1.1215, which capped the pair both in June and in August is clear resistance. It is followed by a low seen in  January  of 1.1113 which is nearly 0.90 on USD/EUR.

1.1050 returns to the chart after serving as a stepping stone for the pair to rise to higher ground. 1.0950 is a pivotal line in the range.

1.0865 provided some support in late May and is weak support before a stronger line: 1.0810, which was the bottom in July also nicely coincides with the low seen in May and is strong support..

The next line is  1.0760, which was the low point in both July and August 2003. 1.0715 joins the chart after temporarily capping the pair in April 2015.

I remain  bearish  on EUR/USD

Draghi degraded the euro to a second tier safe haven currency, and now Janet Yellen  made things gloomier, basically placing the dollar  above the euro in times of trouble. The Chinese crisis, negative data from Europe and Draghi are set to push the pair lower.

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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.