FX Update – EUR Pressure continues

Stuart Cowell HFM

EUR/USD, H1/Weekly

Germany’s economy stagnated in Q4 last year, in line with a number of forecasts and a tad below consensus expectations, which had predicted a slight expansion of 0.1% q/q. Compared to negative quarterly prints in France and Italy, Germany is already the outperformer among the three big Eurozone countries and Q3 numbers for Germany were revised up to 0.2% from 0.1% reported initially. This left the working day adjusted annual rate 0.4% y/y a tad higher than anticipated, but down from 1.1% y/y in Q3. There is no full breakdown yet, but the stats office reported that private as well as public consumption slowed in the last quarter of 2019, while investment was mixed with construction investment, expanding again. Exports contracted, while imports picked up according to first estimate. Looking ahead, exports are likely to continue to suffer and orders numbers are predicting another weak quarter for manufacturing, which leaves the risk that the labour market will start to suffer. The balance of risks clearly is tilted to the downside not just for Germany’s economy.

The Euro posted fresh lows against the Dollar and other currencies, while both the safe haven Yen and Swiss franc lost yesterday’s bid as the daily increment of new coronavirus cases in China fell back alongside narratives that are downplaying yesterday’s jump in total reported cases in Hubei province as being just a reclassification. EURUSD posted a fresh 34-month low at 1.08265, and is set for its biggest two-week loss since July 2019. Today, the German GDP helped lift it to 1.0840 with the broader GDP data for the wider Eurozone yet to come. EURJPY printed a four-month low, at 118.86, and EURCHF a near-five-year-low, at 1.0609. EURGBP yesterday saw a two-month low below at 0.8295.

Elsewhere, USDJPY settled in the upper 109.00s, above the four-day low seen yesterday at 109.61. Cable consolidated gains seen yesterday, holding just shy of the nine-day high at 1.3069.

The EURUSD low earlier tested the S2 and 161.8 Fibonacci extension low of the December rally at 1.0820, below there is the daily lower channel at 1.0750. In the the longer term the 161.8 Fibonacci extension level from the Q419 rally is at 1.0650 and then the psychological 1.0500. The Q419, against the trend, re-trace rally came from this over extension from the 200-day moving average which is where we are now, so some retrace to possibly the 1.1050-75 zone could be expected.

Author

Stuart Cowell

HFM

With over 25 years experience working for a host of globally recognized organisations in the City of London, Stuart Cowell is a passionate advocate of keeping things simple, doing what is probable and understanding how the news, c

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