Global macro overview for 21/07/2017:
The European Central Bank has left the interest rates unchanged at 0.0% as widely expected. During the press conference, ECB President Mario Draghi said that asset purchases will continue at least through December or until ECB sees sustained inflation pickup. Moreover, he said that incoming information confirms strengthening of the economy that has been broadening and the economic growth risks broadly balanced, but better growth has yet to translate into stronger inflation dynamics. A very substantial amount of stimulus is still needed and the ECB is ready to increase stimulus, he added at the end.
The ECB sees the strength of the economy, which is expanding from country to country as well, but does not see that it is affecting the underlying inflation. Among the ECB policymakers, there is a strong and unequivocal conviction that price pressure will gradually increase. The ECB Governing Council is also aware that this process is still developing. The ECB is certain, that implementation of powerful monetary loosening plays the main role in this development and now it has only to wait for the spillover of the economic recovery on wages and prices. Only if this does not happen, another round of loosening will be triggered, including an extension of the purchase of assets.
All this rather dovish statements from the ECB did not give a boost to the market to give up a positive attitude towards the Euro, especially with the US Dollar as weak as it was recently. The fate of this appreciation will be determined by the information from the economy, especially the inflation readings. It is hard to resist the impression that the bold valuation of the prospects of ECB policy is a threat to the currency and creates a great field of disappointment. On the other hand, the FED's future steps regarding the interest rate hikes and monetary policy are underestimated and create a chance for the US Dollar to bounce and reverse from he oversold levels in the medium-term.
Let's now take a look at the EUR/USD technical picture on the H4 time frame. With a clearly anti-US Dollar sentiment, the deep-seated optimism of the ECB's Governing Council was enough to push the price above the May 2016 high. The market is already approaching the key resistance at 1.1715, where are the highs made in August 2015. This level will be violated soon, but the situation might change very fast when the market tries to reverse from this zone.
