ING Notes on Forex - FJElite
Euro
European currencies remain reasonably supported and are taking the Ukraine mineral agreement as a positive and very possibly some kind of move towards a US security guarantee. The details are quite vague at this time but are being compared to the Lend-Lease agreements signed by President Roosevelt during the Second World War, where the US delivered military equipment to Europe in return for strategic military deals – such as new bases. European FXprobably would get a further lift were this deal parlayed into a full US security guarantee, but that path remains very uncertain after the US foreign policy shift seen over the last month. EUR/USD continues to knock on the door of 1.05 and we continue to view this as the top of the trading range for the quarter. We think resistance in the 1.0530/50 area can hold and the return to the tariff story next week can drag EUR/USD back to 1.04 and maybe lower. For today, we've already seen a slight dip in German consumer confidence for March and see a whole host of consumer and business confidence readings across the region over the next couple of days. It would be good to see EUR/USD trading sub 1.0450 to take a little pressure off the upside.
British Pound
We think sterling can start to underperform through March, but we have to be patient. This week UK Prime Minister Starmer will be meeting Trump in Washington and presumably be generating some warm headlines after the UK committed to increasing defence spending by 2027. The UK is seen as a relative outperformer when it comes to a trade war and EUR/GBP risks are probably still skewed lower in the short term. However, we still like a lower GBP/USD and doubt it holds onto gains in the high 1.26 area.