EUR/USD dips as eurozone inflation eases

The euro remains busy and is down 0.40% on Thursday, trading at 1.0624. This follows the euro gaining 0.90% a day earlier.

Eurozone inflation falls to 8.6%

The euro’s moves today and yesterday have in large part been dictated by inflation releases. Earlier today, Eurozone Final CPI came in at 8.6% for January, down sharply from 9.2% in December. Headline inflation eased for a third straight month, after hitting a peak of 10.6% in October. The core rate has not followed this downward trend and ticked higher to 5.3% y/y in January, up from 5.2% in December. The improvement in headline inflation eased worries that the ECB would have to deliver another 50-basis point hike in May, after the expected 50-bp increase at the March 16 meeting.

These concerns that the ECB would remain aggressive pushed the euro almost 1% higher on Wednesday after German inflation edged up to 9.3% in February, up from 9.2% in January and above the estimate of 9.0%. The usual suspects were at play in driving inflation higher – food and energy. The government has provided energy subsidies, but energy prices still shot up in January by 23.1% y/y, while food prices surged 20.2% in January y/y. In addition to the German inflation report, France and Spain also recorded unexpectedly strong inflation.

The eurozone data calendar will wrap up with German and eurozone Service PMIs, which have been showing improvement and are back in expansion territory, an indication of a pickup in economic activity. The German PMI is expected at 51.3 and the eurozone PMI at 52.3 points.

In the US, the Federal Reserve remains hawkish with its message that higher rates are on the way. Fed member Bostic reiterated this stance, saying that the terminal rate would be between 5% and 5.25% and have to remain at that level well into 2024. The markets have priced in a terminal rate of 5.50%, but worries over sticky inflation have led to some calls for rates to rise as high as 6%.

.

EUR/USD Technical

  • EUR/USD is testing support at 1.0655. Below, there is support at 1.0596
  • There is resistance at 1.0765 and 1.0894

TradingView Chart

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.

Kenny Fisher

Kenny Fisher

Market Analyst at OANDA
A highly experienced financial market analyst with a focus on fundamental analysis, Kenneth Fisher’s daily commentary covers a broad range of markets including forex, equities and commodities. His work has been published in several major online financial publications including Investing.com, Seeking Alpha and FXStreet. Based in Israel, Kenny has been a MarketPulse contributor since 2012.