The euro today held on to its gains after the European Central Bank announced its interest rate decision, which was in line with analysts expectations. The EUR/USD currency pair extended its bullish trend during the ECB Governor’s speech, which was quite hawkish.
The EUR/USD currency pair today rallied from an initial low of 1.1800 during the Australian session to a high of 1.1893 during Lagarde’s speech but was lightly off these highs at the time of writing.
The currency pair’s initial gains were driven by positive investor sentiment ahead of the ECB announcement as the dollar remained weak. The release of the Italian industrial production report for July by Istat also contributed to the pair’s rally; the print came in at 7.4% versus the expected 3.5%. The pair rallied higher after the ECB Governing Council announced released its monetary policy decisions. The pair extended its gains during Christine Lagarde’s speech after she said that the bank was not considering measures to contain the euro’s recent rally.
The release of the latest US jobless claims report by the Department of Labor also contributed to the pair’s rally as the print came in at 884,000 initial claims versus the consensus estimate of 846,000 claims. The upbeat US producer price index report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics could not stop the single currencies rally.
The currency pair’s future performance is likely to be affected by tomorrow’s eurozone and US inflation reports.
The EUR/USD currency pair was trading at 1.1894 as at 13:32 GMT having risen from a low of 1.1800. The EUR/JPY currency pair was trading at 126.17 having rallied from a low of 125.33.
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Euro Rallies on ECB Rate Decision and Rising US Jobless Claims
