What is driving the bearish trend in EURUSD?
In order to prove that the downtrend for EURUSD is based on American exceptionalism and the Fed's monetary policy, you do not need to be a genius in your head. It is enough to look at the dynamics of the stock and commodity markets. While oil, copper, iron ore and other raw materials, spooked by the Delta, the slowdown in China's economy and the Fed's intention to curtail QE, are ready to make August the worst month since the beginning of the pandemic for the Bloomberg commodity index, US stocks are thriving. The USA is an island of calm in the ocean of general panic. Is it worth being surprised by the power of greenback?
The fall of iron ore to 8, oil-to a 3-month low indicates investors ' fear for the fate of the global economy. Ambitious plans for its rapid recovery due to the mass introduction of vaccines have to be shelved. More and more countries are talking about the need for booster vaccinations, and manufacturing companies are conducting research on how long the first two doses can protect against COVID-19. The spread of the Delta in the countries of Asia, Australia and Oceania makes us talk about a bumpy path of returning global GDP to the trend.
Do the States look better against this background with their twofold increase in the number of infected and hospitalizations since the last FOMC meeting? I don't think so, but due to large-scale incentives, investors are sitting on bags of money, and all this liquidity is ready to jump into an uptrend in the S&P 500 at the slightest pullbacks. The divergence in the dynamics of the stock index and oil, an indicator of the health of the world economy, allows us to talk about American exclusivity, which pushes down the EURUSD quotes.
The second driver of the strengthening of the US dollar is the Fed's monetary policy, as evidenced by the dynamics of the yield differential of 30 - and 5-year treasuries. In the first days of recovery, the spread is usually wide, as investors expect that the easy money policy will help stimulate GDP growth and inflation. It then declines as the Fed raises rates to cool the economy. At the beginning of 2021, the difference in bond yields was widening, as Jerome Powell and his colleagues passively watched the warming economy. However, since mid-June, everything has changed.
Dynamics of EURUSD and the yield spread of treasuries
Looking at the dynamics of EURUSD and the differential of rates on treasuries, we can assume that the ECB does not participate in the exchange rate formation of the pair at all. In fact, without promising adjustments to monetary policy, he simply handed over the initiative to the Fed. As I noted earlier, Christine Lagarde and her colleagues benefit from the weakening of the euro, so why not pull the chestnuts out of the fire with someone else's hands?
Of course, the Fed understands that QE has outlived itself. The central bank would like to have room for maneuver before raising the rate. If his theory about the temporary nature of high inflation is not correct, it will have to be done already in 2022. However, will Delta make any changes to his plans? We'll see. In the meantime, we continue to adhere to the EURUSD sales strategy in the direction of 1.155-1.158.