EUR/USD: Euro just below 1,1700 ahead of stormy news on ECB rates and US inflation

The single European currency is holding steady near the 1,17 level in the early hours of Thursday in a narrow trading range of fluctuation in anticipation of very important news on European Central Bank interest rates and consumer inflation in the United States.

On the issue of interest rates, the European Central Bank is expected to keep key interest rates unchanged and from what the estimates show, any other decision would be a huge surprise as all analysts do not give a different probability than that of maintaining interest rates at the same levels.

So all the attention is expected to be focused on the speech of President Christine Lagarde which follows the decision.

It will be interesting if the ECB President, in her speech, develops a fresh reasoning for the European Central Bank's next moves, but also for the uncertain environment in which the European Union may find itself if the new  geopolitical developments add to the already unstable climate.

In addition to the European Central Bank's decision, the announcement on the path of consumer inflation in the United States is also at the top of the agenda, especially in view of the Fed meeting next week, where in any case the reduction in interest rates is quite a given and it will take some very big surprise in inflation prices to change the bets.

In general, the overall picture of the exchange rate has not shown significant differences in recent days despite the mild upward momentum of the European currency in the wake of the disappointing news about the course of unemployment in the United States last week.

The pair remains locked in a limited trading range for almost 5 consecutive weeks between the levels 1.1550 - 1.1750 and is waiting for some significant catalyst for this range to break out and it is not excluded that the next few days starting today, where stormy news is expected,  to provide such an opportunity.

The limited range of variation has confirmed to some extent my thoughts on recent period in which I was unable to discern any direction and preferred to remain in a wait-and-see attitude.

In view of the stormy news that follows, it is logical to remain on hold ,without  however, straying too far from my idea of buying the US currency at some new strong peak well above the previous highs of June, as the easy rise of the European currency well above the 1.20 level, in my opinion, remains a significant challenge for the time being.