EUR: Lagarde's Potential Hawkish Shift in Davos Amidst Market Skepticism

EUR: Lagarde may sound more hawkish in Davos

The data inputs for EUR/USD will mostly come from Germany this week, with 2023 GDP figures today and the ZEW survey tomorrow along with final CPI numbers. We have often discussed how European Central Bank rate cut expectations appear way too aggressive (150bp by year-end), although the dovish members of the bank have failed to deliver a coordinated pushback.

Despite ECB hawks' protests against dovish expectations having had little impact on the market, the WEF event in Davos this week – which sees many ECB speakers including President Christine Lagarde – should not be overlooked. Lagarde has a greater potential to influence markets given a clearly divided Governing Council, and we suspect that she will opt for a more hawkish tone compared to last week’s comments. There may be some help for the euro coming from Davos, although we should be wary. Fed expectations have been resistant to data and the same could hold true for the ECB as well. The minutes from the December policy meeting are also released this week. We still think it is premature for EUR/USD to trade sustainably above 1.10.

Elsewhere, Sweden published inflation figures today. CPIF declined to 2.3% from 3.6% (consensus 2.2%), although the core measure excluding energy remained high, slowing from 5.4% to 5.3% versus a consensus of 5.2%. Despite this, it remains unlikely that the Riksbank will tighten policy again. If anything, this modestly raises the chances that another round of FX sales will be started after the current reserve hedging programme ends in early February (in our view).