EUR/USD pauses near 1.18 target – ING

EUR/USD has stalled near 1.1800, with heavy option expiries likely to keep the pair range-bound as markets await potential direction from this week’s ECB meeting, ING’s FX analyst Chris Turner notes.

ECB meeting poses event risk

“EUR/USD briefly touched our long-standing year-end target at 1.1800 yesterday and has since receded. We note that approximately $10bn worth of option expiries are due to fall over the next week, with strike levels between 1.1750 and 1.1800. This suggests EUR/USD could hang around these levels for a while.”

“As mentioned yesterday, the supply-driven fall in energy prices is good news for the euro, but EUR/USD will face some event risk in the form of Thursday’s ECB meeting. Here the hawkish comments from the ECB’s Isabel Schabel really reverberated through FX and rates markets last week.”

“Should she be exposed as a hawkish outlier on Thursday and eurozone growth forecasts be revised insufficiently higher, then the euro could get hit.”