EUR/USD wavers near highs with ECB, Fed speakers on focus

EUR/USD is trading higher for the third consecutive day on Thursday and changes hands at 1.1645 at the time of writing. Investors' concerns about the escalating trade tensions between the US and China keep weighing on the US Dollar, with the focus turning to a slew of Federal Reserve (Fed) and European Central Bank (ECB) speakers, including President Christine Lagarde, to take the stage on Thursday.

In France, Prime Minister Lecornu unexpectedly survived the second and final no-confidence vote on Thursday. The motion, put forward by Marine Le Pen, obtained only 144 votes, way short of the 289 needed to topple the government, as left-wing party La France Insoumise refused to join the far right. The Prime Minister ditched Macron's controversial pensions reform plan, which has provided him with a lifeline, although he still faces the challenge of approving a belt-tightening budget amid a very divided parliament.

Meanwhile, tensions between the US and China have continued escalating, as President Donald Trump affirmed in a TV interview that the US is already in a trade war with China. On Thursday, comments by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calling the Chinese Trade negotiator "unhinged "wolf have failed to ease nerves. Markets, however, keep some hopes that things will return to normal after next week's summit between Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, although the US Dollar is likely to remain on the defensive until that moment.

Daily digest market movers: Mounting US-China trade tensions keep hurting the US Dollar

• The US Dollar remains on its back foot. Concerns that the escalation of the tensions will take the trade relationships between the world's two major economies to a point of no return are undermining confidence in the US Dollar.
• Investors remain hopeful that next week's meeting between Trump and Chinese Prime Minister Xi Jinping may bring things back to normal, meaning a further extension of the trade truce, which ends on November 1, but the Greenback might remain vulnerable up to that moment.
• ECB committee member and Belgian central bank governor, Pierre Wunsch, said earlier on Thursday that he is not uncomfortable with markets pricing a further rate cut, but also affirmed that the possibilities of that scenario have receded.
• Somewhat later, ECB's governor, Martin Kocher has reiterated that view, assuring that "we are at the end of the rate cutting cycle or very close to it".
• On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve assessed that US economic activity remained resilient over the last months, while consumer spending inched down. Employment demand remained muted amid economic uncertainty and higher prices due to rising import costs.
• Eurostat data reported that the Eurozone's Industrial Production contracted at a 1.2% pace in August following a 0.3% increment in July. These figures improve the 1.6% decline forecasted by market analysts and, therefore, the impact on the Euro was minimal.

Technical Analysis: EUR/USD is testing the channel top at 1.1670

EUR/USD's bullish momentum improved on Wednesday as price action breached the neckline of a Double Bottom pattern at 1.1635. This is often a signal of a trend shift, but bulls will need to break the top of the descending channel at the 1.1670 area, which is under pressure at the moment.

The measured target of the Double Bottom pattern is at the October 6 high, near 1.1730. Further up, the next resistance would be the October 1 high, near 1.1780, although that one seems too far a target for this Thursday.

To the downside, the previous resistance, at 1.1630 is likely to act as support ahead of Wednesday's low in the area of 1.1600. A bearish move below these levels would bring the October 9, and 14 lows at 1.1542 back into focus.