EUR/USD slips back below 1.1100 as Treasury yields spark US Dollar reversal

• The EUR/USD touched 1.1140, a 21-week high before risk-off flows extended a pullback.
• The Euro is now into the red on Thursday as risk appetite sees a late reversal.
• US 7-year Treasuries saw yields tick higher, sparking a retreat into the Greenback.

The EUR/USD is seeing some rough chop on Thursday as holiday-thinned markets churn rounding the corner into the last trading day of 2023. 

The Euro (EUR) briefly rose to a 21-week high of 1.1140 early Thursday as broader markets sell off the US Dollar (USD) in anticipation of rate cuts from the Federal Reserve (Fed), but overheated market expectations of a structural pivot from the Fed have run well ahead of the present day, and an uptick in 7-year US Treasuries has sparked a pullback into the safe haven USD, pushing riskier assets like the Euro back into the red during 2023’s second-last trading day.

US Initial Jobless Claims for the week ended December 22 also ticked higher, showing 218K new jobless benefits seekers versus the previous week’s 206K (revised from 205K). US Pending Home Sales in November also flubbed market expectations, coming in flat at 0.0% and missing the market’s forecast 1.0% rebound from October’s -1.2% decline (revised upwards from -1.5%). 

US data misses fuel risk rally, rising Treasury yields end it

Data misses from the US initially sparked a risk appetite run as softening economic indicators from the US increases the odds of pushing the Fed into a rate-cutting cycle sooner rather than later. However, a misfire in a US 7-year Treasury auction is watering down risk appetite ahead of the Thursday closing bell.

US 7-year Treasuries hit a high yield of 3.859% in a $40 billion note auction on Thursday afternoon, rising from the previous yield of 3.857%, and runaway rate cut expectations are crashing against a hard wall of near-term reality as softening economic data sends jitters through bond markets.

Friday marks the last trading day of the 2023 calendar year, and with Eurozone data entirely absent from the calendar this week, will wrap things up with the US Chicago Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for December, forecast to decline from 55.8 to 51.0.

EUR/USD Technical Outlook

The EUR/USD kicked off Thursday trading into a new 21-week high at 1.1140 before backsliding towards 1.1050, sending intraday price action back below the 50-hour Simple Moving Average (SMA) as near-term momentum reverses direction and sends the Euro back towards the 200-hour SMA near 1.0995.

The EUR/USD is down nearly 0.7% from Thursday’s high after a late-day reversal, but the US Dollar is still down against the Euro a third of a percent on the week, and it’s the Euro’s ballgame to lose as markets gear up for the final trading sessions of 2023.

Despite Thursday’s pullback the EUR/USD remains well bid, up over 3% from the last swing low into 1.0723, and the 1.1000 is currently the near-term technical floor as a recent technical barrier, with the 200-day SMA rising into 1.0850 to act as a long-term price floor.

EUR/USD Hourly Chart

EUR/USD Daily Chart

EUR/USD Technical Levels