After Jerome Powell unleashed the hands of risky asset hunters with his speech in Jackson Hole, the ECB completely captured the attention of Forex traders. Its members (ECB) became the main newsmakers at the turn of summer and autumn, overshadowing the report on the US labor market for some time. The heads of the central banks of France, Austria, and the Netherlands spoke about the need to reduce the scale of monthly asset purchases under PEPP, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann warned about the risks of further acceleration of inflation, and Christine Lagarde said that the previous support for the economy is not required. Surgical, that is, point intervention, will be enough. The result is that the euro has closed positive in 9 trading days against the US dollar out of the last 10.

The "hawks" of the ECB are back in town, and investors can expect a decrease in the Central Bank's activity in the debt market from the September 9 meeting. In 2020, it bought up the entire net issue of European bonds, in 2021, it is moving on the same schedule. This has to end sometime. Why not in 2022? The consensus forecast of Bloomberg experts suggests a decrease in monthly asset purchases from the current €80 billion to €50 billion in March. If so, not all PEPP resources will be used up. However, Christine Lagarde once noted that this is not necessary.

Instead of an emergency asset purchase program during a pandemic, the ECB, according to Bloomberg economists, will increase the volume of APP, an older program, from €20 billion to €40 billion per month from April to October 2022.

ECB's usual QE forecasts

Christine Lagarde will be faced with the daunting task of smoothing the signal of a cut in monthly PEPP purchases with dovish rhetoric. Otherwise, it risks getting a further rally in EUR/USD. The strengthening of the euro against the US dollar already looks too fast and painful for exporters, why add fuel to the fire? If Lagarde adopts the words of Jerome Powell about the absence of a temporary connection between the curtailment of QE and the increase in rates, this will be a serious blow to the bulls on the main currency pair. It should be noted that the president of the ECB previously had another weapon - comparing her own monetary policy with the Fed's policy.

Alas, because of the disappointing statistics on the US labor market, the Fed may not rush to announce the curtailment of the quantitative easing program. Employment outside the agricultural sector in August, most likely due to the spread of the delta variant of COVID-19, increased by a modest 245,000, which reduces the likelihood of an important decision to start normalizing monetary policy at the September FOMC meeting. Date X shifts to October or even November, which could further weaken the US dollar.

Technically, the closing of the week will be fundamentally important for EUR/USD. If it is above the upper limit of the fair value by 1.1885, traders will be able to focus on purchases in the direction of the target by 88.6% according to the Shark pattern. It is located near the 1.195 mark. On the contrary, a close below 1.1885 will increase the risks of a decline in quotes to 1.1845 and 1.18.

EUR/USD, Daily chart