EUR/USD: Stay Short For 1.0800

 | May 10, 2017 07:55AM ET

EUR/USD: Draghi maintains dovish tone ahead of ECB June meeting

Macroeconomic overview: Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan said he continues to believe U.S. rate hikes should be "gradual and patient," in part because wages and prices are rising more slowly than might have been expected with an economy so close to full employment. His "baseline" view continues to be for three U.S. interest-rate hikes this year, including the increase in March.

Kaplan made clear that part of the reason for raising rates and, later on, trimming the Fed's balance sheet is to better position the Fed to fight a future recession or shock when it comes, but that he was in no mood to rush.

Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said the current jobless rate at 4.4% has already fallen below his 4.7% estimate of "natural employment." This theoretically is the lowest level possible before wage pressures push inflation too high. "Such an overheated economy would likely be accompanied by higher inflation, which in turn would likely elicit higher interest rates," he said at a commercial real estate conference. Rosengren has pushed for rate hikes over the last year but does not vote again on policy until 2019.
Kansas City Federal Reserve President Esther George said she supported starting to wind down the Fed's massive trove of bonds this year. George does not have a vote on monetary policy this year but participates in discussions. She will next be a voting member of the FOMC in 2019.

The key even today was Mario Draghi’s speech in Dutch Parliament. Investors watched for a possible move towards a more hawkish tone amid strength in the Eurozone economy and receding political risks. But Mario Draghi said: “Incoming data confirm that the cyclical recovery of the euro area economy is becoming increasingly solid and that downside risks have further diminished.” But in his opinion it is too early for the European Central Bank to declare victory in its quest to raise inflation in the Eurozone to its target of almost 2%. He added the benefits of the ECB's ultra-easy policy "clearly outweigh" its potential side effects.

Technical analysis: The EUR/USD corrective move is continued. The pair broke below 14-day exponential moving average and the next support level is 38.2% fibo of April-May rise at 1.0848. A close below this level will reinforce the bearish bias.