The US Dollar is not able to strengthen after the publication of FOMC Minutes and as a result, the Asian session ran in a sleepy atmosphere. EUR/USD is at 1.2360, GBP/USD around 1.4180 and USD/JPY again, the European session will start around 107.00. The Crude Oil remained above 67.00, but the Gold receded to USD 1,350 per ounce, which is about a dozen dollars cheaper than yesterday's maximum. Nikkei 225, Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng all are falling, but by no more than 0.4%. In turn, futures on the SP500 is 0.15% higher than yesterday closing at 2645 points.
On Thursday 12th of April, the event calendar is busy in important data releases, and the market participants should keep an eye on BOE Credit Conditions Survey data from the UK, ECB Monetary Policy Meeting Accounts, Unemployment Claims data from Canada. There is a scheduled speech from German Buba President Weidmann as well.
EUR/USD analysis for 12/04/2018:
The main event of the day is the ECB Monetary Policy Meeting Accounts release scheduled at 01:30 pm GMT. The market participants will likely search for the clues regarding changes in the ECB monetary policy as the recent comment from ECB members were suggesting a possible interest rate hike. Ewald Nowotny, who is the leading hawk in ECB, said that the QE program will be closed by the end of the year, which would open the way for rate hikes. According to Nowotny, the first move may concern the deposit rate and amount to 20 bps from -0.4%. up to -0.2 percent. This is the first case when a member of the ECB gives particulars for monetary policy, although Nowotny did not specify the date of the increase. The market participants will soon find out whether this rumors might be true.
Let's now take a look at the EUR/USD technical picture at the H4 time frame before the ECB Monetary Policy Meeting Accounts are released. After the breakout higher from the falling wedge formation, the market has hit the level of 61% Fibo at 1.2375 and currently is still trading around this level in a tight intraday consolidation between the levels of 1.2346 (50% Fibo) - 1.2400 (round level resistance). The market conditions are now overbought and the momentum indicator starts to point to the downside. The next technical resistance is seen at the level of 1.2446, just below the golden trend line dynamic resistance and the next technical support is seen at the level of 1.2290.
