While most major currencies are seeing a modest push against the dollar, the euro has struggled to get above the 50.0 Fib retracement level at 1.0283. In fact, the single currency has even struggled to contest that level and there hasn’t been much optimism after the ECB policy decision last week.
Economic data and sentiment continues to deteriorate and today’s economic confidence reading saw a drop to 17-month lows.
Surging inflation, a central bank which tends to only hike into a recession, a looming gas crisis ahead of winter, and the worst part? There doesn’t seem to be much relief on any fronts even as we dig in to the second half of the year. Sure, supply chain issues have eased slightly and energy prices have come off the boil but the continuation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict just ensures that there are more isolated problems than there are common solutions for the euro area at the moment.
Germany is set to face a serious gas crunch and a recession in Europe’s biggest economy looks more than likely at the moment. Meanwhile, Italy is facing a political upheaval and is giving more problems for the ECB to do their job – in which policymakers have already been rather slow in trying to address inflation pressures.
It’s hard to look at positives for the euro when the fundamental outlook is so dire. EUR/JPY is also now approaching its 100-day moving average to its lowest in two weeks at 137.67 while EUR/CHF is dribbling lower and threatening a push back towards 0.9700 after the break of parity.
This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.