EUR/USD – 1H

Hello, dear traders! On Wednesday, EUR/USD plunged after the FOMC meeting. The quote consolidated below the 100.0% retracement of 1.1704. However, traders were not able to stop the downward movement. Today, the price reversed to the 100.0% retracement and consolidated above it. Yesterday, the greenback was trading slightly higher. The quote is now moving in the descending trend corridor and trader sentiment remains bearish. All this indicates the dollar's upside potential. As for the FOMC meeting, the central bank kept interest rates as well as the total size of its bond-buying program (quantitative easing) unchanged. According to the Fed, the US economy and labor market have not recovered enough to start tapering.

Chair Jarome Powell said that tapering would start in the coming months and end in the middle of 2022. It is hard to tell what effect this will have on the US dollar. The regulator is moving very slowly towards tapering. Therefore, it is not clear when it will actually start. The prospects of the US economy and labor market are also somewhat vague. The 2021 economic forecast has been downgraded. Meanwhile, the latest labor market report has been disappointing. Jerome Powell believes that the economy is recovering well, but says interest rates should be increased only when employment reaches its highest level. Anyway, interest rates can be raised only after the quantitative easing program ends. Thus, the Fed has 9 months to stop purchasing assets of $120 billion a month. After the meeting, the greenback traded slightly higher by 30-40 pips.

EUR/USD – 4H

On the H4 chart, the quote closed below the 76.4% retracement of 1.1782. The price is now moving towards the 100.0% retracement of 1.1606. None of the indicators is forming divergence today. There are no buy signals at the moment.

Macroeconomic calendar:

Eurozone: PMI in services and manufacturing sectors

United States: jobless claims data, PMI in the services sector

They are not the most important reports, thus can be ignored by the market.

Commitments of Traders report:

Commitments of Traders report:

According to the latest COT report, speculators closed 4,195 long positions and 4,276 short positions. The total number of long positions held by speculators fell to 187K, while that of short ones dropped to 160K. In the past few months, the group of "Non-commercial" traders was actively closing long positions in EUR/USD. At the same time, the euro increased slightly. Speculators now stopped closing long positions in EUR only. Therefore, a new bullish trend may start this week.

EUR/USD outlook:

Traders should consider buying the pair when the price closes above the 100.0% retracement of 1.1704 on the H1 chart with the target at 1.1772. The quote may rise to the upper border of the descending channel. Meanwhile, if the price closes below 1.1704 on the H1 chart, traders should consider selling EUR/USD with the target at 1.1629.

TERMS:

Non-commercial traders are major market players: banks, hedge funds, investment funds, private, large investors.

Commercial traders are commercial enterprises, firms, banks, corporations, companies that buy currency not to yield speculative profit, but to ensure current activities or export-import operations.

Non-reportable positions are small traders who do not have a significant impact on the price.