'Confident but cautious'

Forex 4 minutes to read

Michael O’Neill

FX Trader, Loonieviews.net

Summary: European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has continuing confidence with his Eurozone economic growth outlook, but the view is tempered by increasing caution.

That is how he summed up the monetary policy stance during his press conference today. Draghi’s dovish persona was on full display again, saying that the information available since the March meeting confirms “slower growth momentum extending into the new year,” while blaming global headwinds for some of the euro area growth development issues. Basically, he is confident that Eurozone growth will resume, but not any time soon.

EURUSD reacted by retreating from its pre-press conference peak of 1.1287 down to 1.1231 where it found support from the minor uptrend line, intact since the beginning of the month. USDCAD rallied from 1.3322 to 1.3357 but it ran out of steam as WTI oil prices traded firmly above $64.00/barrel.

US March inflation rose 0.4%, a tad higher than the 0.3% forecast while easily beating February’s 0.2% result. The year over year increase was 1.9% with about 40% of the increase due to higher energy costs. The news underpinned the US dollar which moved higher against the major G-10 currencies except JPY and GBP which were unchanged from the New York open.

CPI — Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wall Street didn’t appear to be impressed with the inflation data one way or another. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was unchanged in early trading while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were modestly higher. Those traders are biding their time until the FOMC minutes from the March 20 meeting are released at 1800 GMT. The minutes are expected to provide some clarity around the committee’s commitment to zero rate increases in 2019.

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