For the 24 hours to 23:00 GMT, the EUR rose 0.29% against the USD and closed at 1.2936, after the EU delayed its fresh sanctions against Russia, Europe’s biggest trading partner.
Elsewhere, in France, the trade deficit narrowed to €5.5 billion in July, from a revised trade deficit of €5.6 billion registered in the previous month.
Yesterday, the ECB Governing Council Member, Erkki Liikanen, opined that scale of the ECB’s asset-backed security and cover bond purchases has not been decided and asserted that the new measures should be implemented with caution and that the central bank should take into consideration the risk component involved.
In the US, the small business optimism index advanced to 96.1 in August, exceeding market expectations of 96.0, following a reading of 95.7 in the previous month. Meanwhile, JOLTs job openings in the nation fell unexpectedly to a level of 4,673.0K in July, lower than market expectations of a rise to 4,700.0K and compared to a revised level of 4,675.0K registered in the prior month. Additionally, the Redbook index climbed 4.9%, on an annual basis in the week ended 5 September 2014, following a similar rise registered in the previous week.
Separately, member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, Daniel Tarullo, mentioned that the US regulators have planned to raise capital requirements for the largest banks above international standards to ensure they do not place the financial system at risk.
In the Asian session, at GMT0300, the pair is trading at 1.293, with the EUR trading marginally lower from yesterday’s close.
The pair is expected to find support at 1.2873, and a fall through could take it to the next support level of 1.2817. The pair is expected to find its first resistance at 1.2972, and a rise through could take it to the next resistance level of 1.3015.
Investors would await US mortgage applications for the last week, scheduled to release later in the day.
The currency pair is trading above its 20 Hr and 50 Hr moving averages.