The euro is drifting at the start of the week, as EUR/USD trades slightly above the 1.04 level.
The euro remains under pressure, as it continues to weaken against the US dollar. EUR/USD hasn’t mustered a winning week since March and hit a dubious milestone on Thursday, closing below the 1.04 line for the first time since January 2003. If the euro breaks below support at 1.03 it would be on track to fall to parity, a psychologically significant level.
The EU gave the eurozone a report card on Monday, and the data wasn’t pretty. The report was the EU’s first forecast since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The forecast stated that eurozone growth would expand by 2.7% in 2022 and 2.3% in 2023. In February, the forecast stood at 4% and 2.7%, respectively. On the inflation front, the forecast was revised upwards to 6.1% in 2022 and 2.7% in 2023, up from the previous forecast of 3.5% and 1.7%, respectively.
The takeaway from the EU forecast is that as a result of the Ukraine war, the eurozone is experiencing lower growth and higher inflation, raising concerns that the eurozone could soon be gripped by stagflation. The eurozone has been particularly hard-hit by the conflict, due to its heavy reliance on Russian energy and geographical proximity to Ukraine.
Unsurprisingly, investors don’t like what they are seeing, and the euro has taken it on the chin. Reports that the EU is trying to garner support for a ban on Russian oil, which would mark the ratcheting up of sanctions against Moscow, is putting further pressure on the wobbly euro.
The upheaval caused by the Ukraine war seems to have woken up the ECB from its dovish slumber. After years of monetary easing, ECB members are becoming more vocal about the need for tighter policy, and ECB President Christine Lagarde said earlier this week that QE would end in the third quarter, and a rate hike would follow “some time” after that. We could see the launch of a rate-tightening cycle as early as July.
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