Euro Bounces Back as US Dollar Pauses on Yield Dip. Will EU Inflation Ignite the ECB?

January 21, 2022

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EURO, EUR/USD, Crude Oil, US Dollar, PBOC, Iron Ore, AUD/USD – Talking Points

Euro tracked slightly higher with the US Dollar pausing on lower yields
APAC equities move higher thanks to easing from the PBOC
With Treasury yields easing, will EUR/USD find some support?

Euro Bounces Back: The Euro pared back some of the losses of the week as the US Dollar was weaker across the board with US Treasury yields drifting lower after an astonishing run up of late.

After trading as high as 1.902% yesterday, the 10-year note has pulled back to be near 1.86 in Asia. The 2-year note went up to 1.076% and it is only a basis point or so from there now.

Other G-10 bond yields have generally been headed north as well. Most notably, the 10-year German government bond, the Bund, nominally yielded more than 0% yesterday for the first time since May 2019. It has since dipped below zero again.

The inflation data for the Euro-zone later today might provide an impetus for the ECB to change course on monetary policy.

Despite lofty Treasury yields, the US Dollar index (DXY) lost ground yesterday and has continued doing so today.

GBP/USD continues to firm after yesterday’s inflation beat of 5.4% year-on-year raised rate hike expectations for the Bank of England.

Euro Bounces Back:

Euro Bounces Back: The strength in the Sterling has seen EUR/GBP dip to 0.8313. It is approaching the December 2019 low of 0.8270 and a breach of it would see the cross rate at its lowest since July 2016.

Crude oil pulled back from its overnight high of $86.79 bbl today as supply from Iraq to Turkey was re-installed.

The main Wall Street indices were down around 1% in their cash session but are trading in the green in afterhours via futures, thanks to the PBOC easing policy further today.

APAC equities have had a stellar day as a result of the Chinese central bank lowering the 5-year loan prime rate (LPR) by 5 basis points to 4.6% and the 1-year LPR 10 basis points lower to 3.7%. Tech stocks were the big gainers, with with the Hang Seng Tech index up over 3%.

Iron ore rallied on the PBOC news and the Australian unemployment numbers were better than expected.

Jobs added was in-line with forecast of 60k, but the rate of unemployment fell to 4.2% instead of 4.5% expected. The misalignment comes from the fact that 2 independently different sources of data are used in the calculations of each.

Despite all this, AUD/USD was unable to hold above 0.7250.

In other news, US President Joe Biden was active on the wires. He passed the buck on inflation management to the Fed. He also said that he doesn’t think Russia will launch a full-scale invasion of the Ukraine. His reasoning was that the consequences would be too severe for them.

Ahead in the US session, there’s jobs numbers and home sales data to watch out for.

EUR/USD TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

EUR/USD has bounced off the 34-day simple moving average (SMA) in the 2 sessions prior to today it may continue to provide support, currently at 1.13252.

Further below, support could be at the previous lows of 1.12724, 1.12347, 1.12219 and 1.11861.

On the topside, resistance might be at the previous highs and pivot points of 1.1383, 1.13865, 1.14830, 1.15133, 1.15245 and 1.16922.