EUR Outlook: Gauging ECB Pushback Amid Dovish Market Expectations

EUR: Gauging the ECB pushback

Attention turns to the ECB today. Investors are currently pricing in over 125bp of rate cuts next year, with the first full cut priced for the April meeting. We think that is far too early. However, the question today is how far ECB President Christine Lagarde wants to push back against that. Feeding into the story will be revisions to ECB staff growth and inflation forecasts. The larger the downward revisions to both growth and inflation (e.g. if the 2025 CPI forecast gets cut below 2%), the more euro money market rates will soften, and the euro will lag other currencies as they advance against the softer dollar. 

Our ECB market preview felt there were upside risks to EUR/USD going into this ECB meeting. EUR/USD has already enjoyed a strong rally on the back of the softer US rate view, and assuming the ECB does not fully embrace dovish expectations for next year, we would say the bias for EUR/USD lies towards 1.0945/65 and probably 1.10 multi-day. Over recent months, we have been forecasting EUR/USD to end the year somewhere near 1.07. After last night's Fed shift, we expect EUR/USD ends the year closer to 1.10 now.

Also, today look out for the Norges Bank and Swiss National Bank meetings. Presumably, the SNB will cut its inflation forecasts. Having consistently sold FX since last year – delivering nominal Swiss franc appreciation and keeping the real Swiss franc stable – we are interested to hear today whether the SNB has been both buying and selling FX. If it confirms it is on both sides of EUR/CHF, rather than just being a EUR/CHF selle, and we suspect EUR/CHF can jump back up to the 0.9550 area.