03.01.201804:48 Forex Analysis & Reviews: EUR/USD: first stop - at 1.2105

According to the results of the first hours of the trading week, you can make the first cautious conclusions. Having opened the EURUSD pair, I first of all wondered - is the euro becoming more expensive or is the dollar weakening? Since the European currency does not (and recently did not have) reasons for large-scale consolidation, the conclusion was that: the American currency is once again under pressure due to fundamental factors. The remaining dollar pairs confirmed the assumption: the US dollar lost its positions in a pair with the franc, yen, Canadian and Australian. Gold immediately responded to the situation by rising to $1311. In general, the dollar index fell to multi-month lows, reaching 91.55 points.

This trend at the beginning of the new year is alarming and leads to certain thoughts. If the weakening of the US currency at the end of December was explained by profit-taking by traders. At the moment, such dynamics speak of quite serious problems for the dollar, which in general just emerged last year. After all, according to the logic of things, on January 2, the trading week was to begin with a southern gap with a subsequent flute. However, instead, the EURUSD pair continued the trend from last week and has already updated its high in 2017 (at the time of writing these lines - 1.2061).

In my previous articles, I have repeatedly listed the reasons that are the "anchors" of the growth of the American currency. Among them - weak inflation, personnel reshuffles in the Fed, indecision of the regulator's members, impulsive policy of Donald Trump, failed negotiations on NAFTA and the threat of war with the DPRK. By the end of the previous year, one more thing unexpectedly joined these problems: the tax reform.

Surprisingly, the issue of tax reform, which for a year and a half has supported the US currency, eventually became a "burden", as among experts, skepticism began to prevail over its effectiveness and general appropriateness. Even the head of the Fed has cooled the eagerness of dollar bulls, saying that the new tax rules will retain "moderate economic growth", but no more. After that, the market switched to inflation, whose weak growth dynamics as of the moment cannot be explained even by the Fed.

Oddly, the dollar's price is explained, strange as it may seem, by the growth of the world economy. "The crisis has passed," analysts said, interviewed by Bloomberg in the last days of December. According to them, the world economy returned "in a stable position" after a major crisis. Separately, the economists singled out the eurozone and Britain. Contrary to pessimistic forecasts, the European economy will likely show a peak growth over the past 10 years, following the results of 2017.

Such dynamics on a global scale indicate that the leading central banks of the world will curtail the policy of incentive programs. In other words, the divergence of the monetary policy of the ECB and the Fed will gradually lose its relevance. As one of the analysts noted, the European Central Bank, in fact, repeats the way of the Federal Reserve, only with a delay of several years. If key European indicators continue to grow, at the end of this year, the ECB will complete the QE program, after which the issue of raising the rate will come to the fore. While on the subject, Mario Draghi will leave his post in October 2019, but the likely successor may be the head of the Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann, who clearly occupies a "hawkish" position.

Although we are currently talking about a fairly long-term outlook, the market has reoriented on Tuesday. The Fed lost its "unique advantage": following the 2008 crisis, it was the first (and for a long time the only) Central Bank that took a course towards normalizing monetary policy. Let me remind you that on January 1, 2017, the euro/dollar pair opened at 1.0523, and then collapsed to 1.0339. Once again, many started to talk about parity, but the European currency, retreating from a record low, began its ascent with a length of 1,5 thousand points.

To date, the dollar does not even have those "trump cards" that it had at the beginning of last year. However, the European currency lives in hopes, which are supported by the growth of the world economy and directly by the EU.

Despite the impulsive and recoilless growth of the EURUSD pair, long positions would appear quite risky at the moment- precisely because of the impulsive character of growth and the absence of a corrective rollback. The last time the pair was at such heights was in January 2015 - and even then, during the global decline from the 38th figure. In my opinion, traders need to wait some time: such recoilless growth is fraught with the same rapid decline. However, if the price zafletit in the area of the 20th figure and after that will continue its growth (ideally - with a corrective decline), then it will be possible to speak with confidence about the formed trend.

From the technical side, all the "older" timeframes categorically speak about the continuation of the price increase. On H1, H4, D1 and W1, the Ichimoku indicator Kinko Hyo generated a bullish "Line Parade" signal, indicating the strength of the bullish movement. On the monthly chart, the "Golden Cross" signal was generated, which warns about the impulse price spurt. Since the price of MN is located between the middle and top lines of the Bollinger Bands indicator (whose lines have expanded), then this jerk is more likely to be towards the upward side.