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- EUR/USD trades calmly near 1.1700 ahead of the Fed-ECB monetary policy announcement.
- Both the Fed and the ECB will likely maintain the status quo.
- The German HICP is estimated to have grown at a stronger pace of 3% YoY in April.
The EUR/USD pair consolidates around 1.1700, inside Tuesday’s trading range, during the Asian trading session on Wednesday. The major currency pair has remained broadly sideways, with investors awaiting monetary policy announcements by the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.
Both the Fed and the ECB are expected to leave interest rates unchanged at their current levels, and warn of upside inflation risks amid elevated energy prices due to the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Investors will pay close attention to commentaries from Fed Chair Jerome Powell and ECB President Christine Lagarde to get cues about whether their respective central banks are discussing the need to tighten monetary conditions in the near term.
Ahead of the Fed-ECB policy announcement, investors will focus on the preliminary German Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) data for April, which will be published at 12:00 GMT. The data is expected to show that the German inflation accelerated to 3% Year-on-Year (YoY) from 2.7% in March.
EUR/USD technical analysis
EUR/USD trades flat at around 1.1700 as of writing. The pair reflects a sideways trend as it remains sticky to the 20-day exponential moving average (EMA), which is at 1.1698, but stays above the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement at 1.1666.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) shifts into the 40.00-60.00 zone after failing to sustain above 60.00 for longer, which indicates loss of upside momentum, but the upside bias remains intact.
On the topside, immediate resistance emerges at the 50.0% Fibonacci retracement near 1.1745, followed by the 61.8% retracement around 1.1825, with further hurdles at 1.1938 and the cycle high near 1.2082. Looking down, the 38.2% retracement at 1.1666 is the initial support; a break below that area would expose deeper supports at the 23.6% level near 1.1567 and the structural floor around 1.1408.
