EURUSD Daily - Morning Update

The commentaries are restricted to those I see relevant for EURUSD and are updated twice per day (all times being GMT): @ 06:00 & @ 12:00

EURUSD SO FAR TODAY:

A thin and calm Asia session after a late European – early US session where EURUSD again showed some muscles triggered by poor US PMI data and renewed doubts about whether the ECB tomorrow will cut rates. While definitively justified from an inflation point of view, such doubts are linked to whether or not a rate cut will stimulate banks to increase their corporate lending and for companies to justify increased investments from lower borrowing cost. This up against the risk of seeing banks offering negative deposit rates from lower ECB rates are the critical aspects the ECB has on their table for tomorrow.

Many European countries have May 1 or Labour Day as a public holiday and as such there is no data releases of importance during European session. The US session holds several:

EURUSD EVENT RISK TO PAY ATTENTION TO:

(the list is not complete but limited to those scheduled data/news releases that historically have influenced EURSD in terms of volatility and/or trend). The first figure is the consensus among forecast and the second figure is the last release:

• 12:15 US ADP Employment Change (Apr) 150K 158K

• 14:00 US Construction Spending (MoM) (Mar) 0.7% 1.2%
• 14:00 US ISM Manufacturing PMI (Apr) 50.9 51.3
• 14:00 US ISM Prices Paid (Apr) 53.0 54.5
• 18:00 US Fed Interest Rate Decision (May 1) 0.25% 0.25%

• 18:00 US Fed's Monetary Policy Statement and press conference


ADP Employment change is by many seen as an indicator to what NFP later in the week will show. The historical correlation between them though is not strong enough to say that it is. For April the figure is forecasted to be a touch lower than for March.

ISM manufacturing is the major confidence index we have for the manufacturing sector in the US and while forecast for April are a touch weaker than what was seen in March, yesterday’s disappointing Chicago PMI could be an indicator that ISM manufacturing might surprise to the downside and add a bit to USD weakness.

Both these data releases might cause a bit of EURUSD volatility upon release but likely no major moves as markets will be awaiting the FOMC meeting.

I would expect no changes to the Fed’s asset purchase programs in this meeting. There have been strong enough doubts to employment reports, a bit disappointing GDP data and confidence indexes lately to cast doubts to the strength of a US recovery. I think the FOMC will be very much aware of those signals and therefore continue policies as they have been throughout the winter.

Unchanged policies should have little impact on EURUSD.

Should the FOMC take a more hawkish stand and indicate that reduced asset purchases are just around the corner, then you get renewed USD strength and a rather sharp correction to EURUSD downwards.

EURUSD LEVELS TO PAY ATTENTION TO:

The levels are set as: (*) not particularly strong level and one that could be broken even on a first attempt, (**) a more solid level which might hold on a couple of attempts to go through, (***) a level assumed to be solid and likely only to be broken through from significant news, data releases or strong change in risk sentiment

• Support by 1.3135-30 (**)
• Support by 1.3100-1.2990 (**)
• Resistance by 1.3195-05 (***)
• Resistance by 1.3250-60 (***)

OUTLOOK FOR THE REST OF THE DAY:

Due to that many European countries are closed, I would expect a rather calm European session with EURUSD in a tight range. A range of 1.3135-1.3195 would be my best guess.

The US session holds data releases that normally could cause volatility and a move for EURUSD afterwards but with the FOMC meeting coming up later, I would say the European range should also hold for the US session until the FOMC meeting.

Unchanged policies by the FOMC could see EURUSD touching a few pips above 1.3200 but there are significant offerings above.

A hawkish stand by the FOMC could see EURUSD dropping 150+ pips.