Global stock indexes started the week on a positive note. Market participants were encouraged by the strong statistics on Japan and China.
According to preliminary estimates, Japans's GDP increased by 5% for the third quarter, and by 21.4% on an annualized basis.
Meanwhile, China's industrial production expanded by 6.9% in October, which was estimated to grow by 6.5%. At the same time, the growth of retail sales in the country in the previous month accelerated to 4.3% year-on-year from 3.3% recorded in September.
Risk appetite increased on Monday after Moderna reported that its COVID-19 vaccine is more than 94% effective. Against this background, the greenback sank to weekly lows around 92.47 points.
The EUR / USD pair continued to rise above 1.1800, which started last week but attracted sellers near 1.1870.
"The news around the coronavirus vaccine gives markets a glimpse of hope at the end of the tunnel. This increases the risk appetite, which supports the euro," said strategists at Commerzbank.
However, the pandemic continues to rage in Europe and in the US. The number of people infected with COVID-19 has exceeded the 11 million mark in the US.
The European Central Bank has already made its intentions clear. However, whether his American counterpart will continue to ease monetary policy is still an open question. It is only known that the regulator does not plan to raise interest rates over the next few years.
New restrictive measures in America are local in nature and vary from state to state, so the Federal Reserve does not seem to have an urgent need to ease monetary policy.
Standard Chartered believes that the aggressive increase in the incidence of COVID-19 in the US, as well as the next package of measures to support the national economy that has stalled in Congress, may force the fed to go for additional monetary policy easing before the December meeting.
"The US Central Bank may increase the volume of monthly purchases of Treasuries by about 50%, to $120 billion, or take measures to improve lending conditions for businesses. Such off-schedule actions will surprise the market and demonstrate a high degree of concern about the state of the American and global economies. This may collapse the yield of Treasuries, as well as cause a drawdown of USD against the currencies of the Big Ten" the bank's experts noted.
Although the euro is still targeting the $1.1900 mark, the positions of the single currency look vulnerable.
First, there is still uncertainty about the results of the US presidential election. The current head of the White House, Donald Trump, said that he is ready to continue to challenge the election results in the courts. This may delay the transfer of power to the new President, which will add to the nervousness of the markets.
Secondly, according to some reports, Trump wants to introduce tough measures against China until the end of his tenure as head of state.
According to experts, such steps by the current President are due to attempts to make it politically unprofitable for his opponent – the likely US President Joe Biden - to change course towards Beijing.
Thus, there is reason to believe that investors can quickly lose their appetite for risk, and the protective greenback will again be in the spotlight. In this regard, the opportunities for EUR/USD growth look limited.
