EUR/USD forecast: Not out of the woods yet, attention turns to ECB meeting

• The shared currency took a hit from the German growth downgrade.
• Stronger USD further added to the intraday selling bias on Thursday.
• The downside remains cushioned ahead of the latest ECB decision.

The EUR/USD pair came under some renewed selling pressure on Wednesday and tumbled back below the key 1.10 psychological mark, albeit managed to recover around 25-pips from daily lows. The shared currency took a sharp knock in reaction to the German growth downgrade by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, now expected to contract by -0.3% in Q3 following -0.1% in the previous quarter and meeting the criteria of a ‘technical recession’.
 
On the other hand, the US Dollar remained well supported by a strong follow-through pickup in the US Treasury bond yields amid growing optimism over the resumption of the US-China trade talks. On the economic data front, the US Producer Price Index (PPI) for August bettered market expectations and remained supportive of the bid tone surrounding the greenback. The headline PPI came in to show a rise of 0.1% during the reported month while the core PPI, which excludes food and energy prices rose 0.3%.

All eyes remain glued to the ECB decision

Meanwhile, trade tensions between the world's two largest economies eased further on Wednesday after the US President Donald Trump said that he will delay a planned tariff hike on Chinese goods by two weeks as a gesture of goodwill after Beijing exempted a range of American goods from its own tariffs. The market reaction, however, turned out to be rather muted, as investors seemed reluctant to place any aggressive bets ahead of Thursday's key event risk - the highly anticipated ECB monetary policy decision.
 
The European Central Bank is widely expected to lower interest rates further into the negative territory and also announce a new QE program, though opinions on the stimulus package are divided and thus, increases the relevance of Thursday's rate decision. This will be followed by the post-meeting press conference, where comments by the ECB President Mario Draghi will further collaborate towards infusing volatility around the EUR crosses. From the US, the release of consumer inflation figures for the month of August might influence the USD price dynamics but seems more likely to be overshadowed by the post-ECB volatility.

Short-term technical outlook

From a technical perspective, the pair on Wednesday broke through a symmetrical triangle formation on hourly charts and confirmed a fresh bearish breakdown. However, the fact that the pair managed to defend the 1.10 handle on a closing basis warrant some caution before placing any aggressive bearish bets. The pair now seems to have stabilized around 200-hour SMA, just below the triangle support breakpoint near the 1.1025 region. Any subsequent up-move now seems to confront fresh supply near mid-1.1000s, resistance marked by 38.2% Fibo. level of the 1.1251-1.0926 downfall, above which a bout of short-covering now seems to assist the pair to surpass the recent swing higher - around the 1.1070-80 region - and test 61.8% Fibo. level resistance near the 1.1125-30 area en-route the next major hurdle near the 1.1175-80 region (100-day SMA).
 
On the flip side, sustained weakness below the 1.10 handle, leading to a subsequent slide through the overnight swing lows - around the 1.0985, might now turn the pair to fall back towards the multi-year swing lows - around the 1.0925 area before eventually dropping farther below the 1.0900 round figure mark towards testing its next major support near the 1.0835-30 region.