Batten Down the Hatches – It should be a wild one!

First, the European Central Bank is set to announce their latest interest rate decision very shortly. Second, US Non-farm payrolls are reported 45 minutes after that.

Expectations:
 
The ECB hikes by 25 basis points and moves to a more neutral tone with monetary policy.

US Non-farm Payrolls, in the wake of yesterday’s poor ADP numbers, has the potential to severely disappoint with worse-than-expected numbers.

So where does the dollar stand ahead of all this? Not very comfortably at key support:

 

If today’s tag-team combination pushes the US dollar index convincingly below the upward-sloping channel we’ve marked in the chart above … well …. let’s just say recent history hasn’t served the dollar kindly after a break like this.

We’ll learn a lot about dollar sentiment when the dust settles today.


Regards,

Jack & JR