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Forex: Things that need your attention

Forex 

The Euro has become the most interesting currency among G10 for the past 24 hours. The ECB's president Christine Lagarde has increased the speculations that the bank could be increasing the interest rate as soon as the end of Q3. This means that era of negative rates could soon be coming to an end. This particular factor has pushed the Euro higher against most G10 currencies. But here is a dilemma that traders need to pay close attention to before they can begin placing large bids on the Euro. Is the Eurozone's economy strong enough to withstand the shocks of higher interest after such a long period of lower interest rates?

Yes, yesterday's IFO Business confidence from the biggest economy of the Eurozone has suggested that economic situations aren't that dire as the number came in better than expected. But the reality is that it is one number, and Germany doesn't necessarily represent the entire Eurozone. We think that the further price action for the Euro could look very similar to that of the Sterling, which began to move higher initially when the bank announced increasing the interest rates. But now, the Sterling has lost its mojo, and despite the Bank of England increasing the interest rate a few times this year, it is struggling to move higher against the dollar.

The reason is simple, the actual economic conditions in the UK are only deteriorating with every passing day, and this is keeping the selling pressure on the BOE. The BOE, on the other hand, has no other option but to continue to increase the interest rate to bring inflation lower. In addition to that, we have Brexit woes that adversely influence the economic situation, not to mention the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The Euro is no different as well, so even though we do see some bids pushing the Euro prices higher against the dollar and Sterling, we think it is likely that this trend may not last long. The risk of the Euro/dollar pair hitting parity is still very much on the table, and the odds are still strong that this time we could see the Euro/dollar forex pair hitting parity.

Author

Naeem Aslam

Naeem Aslam

Zaye Capital Markets

Based in London, Naeem Aslam is the co-founder of CompareBroker.io and is well-known on financial TV with regular contributions on Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC, Fox Business, France24, Sky News, Al Jazeera and many other tier-one media across the globe.

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