4-hour timeframe
Another trading week on the Forex market has ended, and the euro/dollar currency pair has gone into a dead flat. During the past trading week, the pair's quotes were traded in a narrow side channel despite a large number of macroeconomic statistics, important news, and messages. Thus, we can only once again focus the attention of traders on the fact that the markets remain rather alarming due to all the events of 2020. And we are talking primarily about the "coronavirus crisis", which continues to harm the world economy and confronts investors and traders with absolute uncertainty. Thus, at the very beginning of the coronavirus epidemic, the markets were in an absolute storm, and now – in absolute calm.
As we have already noted, there were a lot of events in the past week. Even if you didn't take into account the secondary reports, there was a lot of information. For example, on Wednesday, data on unemployment in Germany were released, which showed that at the end of June, this figure increased to just 6.4%. The number of newly unemployed in the country increased by only 69 thousand, and the index of business activity in the most important sector of the economy – manufacturing – rose to 45.2. Thus, the data from Germany were very optimistic, better than the forecast values. Business activity in the European Union increased in production to 47.4, meaning that we are seeing a rapid recovery in this indicator. On the same day in America, data on the change in the number of employees from ADP in the private sector, which showed an increase of only 2.4 million instead of the projected 3 million. However, business activity indices were even more optimistic than in Europe. The ISM manufacturing index was 52.6, and the Markit manufacturing index was 49.8. Thus, we can say that both indices signal growth in the US manufacturing sector, and not a slowdown in the fall. Unfortunately, all these figures are relative. They are usually relative to the previous month. And if the economy of any country has been seriously shrinking for several months in a row, now these "optimistic figures" are just a small improvement after an absolute collapse. Also on Wednesday, July 1, the head of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, spoke via videoconference at a forum in France. The topic of her speech concerned changes in the world economy as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. According to Lagarde, the changes in the economic system will be extremely profound. They particularly affect the sphere of production, as well as labor and trade. The head of the ECB believes that the crisis and the pandemic will lead to the expansion of the use of digital technologies, to an increase in the scale of automation and robotics in the manufacturing sectors. Also, according to Lagarde, the volume of trade via the Internet should significantly increase. Well, the minutes of the last meeting of the Federal Reserve reflected information about the need for long-term support of the American economy. Thus, in general, we can say that despite the macroeconomic data, both economies of interest to traders continue to remain in a weak position and recover very hard, as noted by the top officials of the Fed and ECB.
On Thursday, July 2, there was again plenty of macroeconomic information. In the European Union, the unemployment rate was published, which, like in Germany, rose slightly, but not too much, to just 7.4%, which in the context of the global crisis can not be considered a failure value. In America, unemployment has fallen to 11.1%. The Nonfarm Payrolls report was also quite strong. Although this indicator of the state of the labor market for several months showed negative values for millions of jobs, at the end of June, the number of people employed in the non-agricultural sector increased by 4.8 million. However, the number of applications for unemployment benefits increased again, this time by almost 1.5 million. The total number of secondary applications for benefits increased to 19.3 million. In general, all these statistics can be interpreted in absolutely different ways. On the one hand, it can be called strong, because it showed high absolute increases and values exceeding forecasts, on the other – contradictory. We believe that after the severe collapse of the American and European economies, these figures do not matter much now. We must wait for the time when the crisis will be completely behind us, and the "coronavirus" will be defeated and will no longer have a destructive impact on the economy. Only after this, any growth in any macroeconomic indicator can be considered seriously and not be afraid that a new quarantine will be introduced in a month or the COVID-2019 virus will break free again. It seems that the majority of large investors and traders now believe approximately the same since most of the macroeconomic reports continue to be ignored. Well, in such conditions, ordinary traders are still not very comfortable to trade. We believe that increased attention should still be paid to technical factors.
And technical factors are now also disappointing and do not contribute to active trading. We can say that the trend movement ended on June 10. Since then, in the first days, the pair still corrected, and then completely went into absolute flat. At the moment, it is limited to approximately the levels of 1.1200-1.1320. It is difficult to say when and under what conditions traders will be able to withdraw the pair from this channel. The key themes for the euro/dollar currency pair remain unchanged. And the lack of news on these topics may be the real reason for the flat in recent weeks. After all, traders may now be interested in the prospects of the American and European economies. After a strong downturn, everyone is interested in recovery. Therefore, the topics of the "US-China" conflict, as well as the provision of new stimulus packages to the EU and US economies, can greatly concern market participants. However, Washington and Beijing decided to put their bickering on pause, and the adoption of new financial aid packages is still stuck in Congress and the European Council. Thus, traders are deprived of new information on these important topics, and do not force events, preferring to wait for the necessary information.
Trading recommendations:
On a 4-hour timeframe, the euro/dollar pair trades inside a side channel, without even trying to work out its upper and lower lines. Thus, we now recommend that traders wait for the pair's quotes to exit this channel, and only then resume trading, according to the new trend. Purchases are recommended to be considered above the level of 1.1320, sales – below the level of 1.1200.