EUR/USD STRUGGLES FOR DIRECTION, STUCK IN A RANGE ABOVE MID-1.1500S

• EUR/USD was seen oscillating in a range during the early part of the trading action on Monday.
• A combination of factors continued underpinning the USD and capped the upside for the major.
• Dovish Fed outlook held the USD bulls from placing aggressive bets and extended some support.

The EUR/USD pair lacked any firm directional bias and seesawed between tepid gains/minor losses, around mid-1.1500s through the Asian session.

The pair struggled to capitalize on the previous session’s modest recovery move from the post-NFP swing lows to the lowest level since July 2020 and oscillated in a narrow range during the early part of the trading action on Monday. A softer risk tone around the Asian equity markets, along with a solid rebound in the US Treasury bond yields underpinned the US dollar and acted as a headwind for the EUR/USD pair.

The greenback was further supported by Friday’s upbeat US monthly jobs report, which showed that the economy created 531,000 new jobs in October. Moreover, figures for August and September were also revised higher to show an additional 235,000 jobs over those months. That said, the Fed’s dovish outlook held the USD bulls from placing aggressive bets and extended some support to the EUR/USD pair, at least for now.

As was widely expected, the US central bank last week announced a reduction of $15 billion to its monthly asset purchases. In the post-meeting press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated that inflation is transitory and that policymakers were in no rush to hike borrowing costs. This, in turn, failed to provide any meaningful impetus to the greenback and led to subdued/range-bound price action around the EUR/USD pair.

There isn’t any major market-moving economic data due for release on Monday, either from the Eurozone or the US. Hence, the focus will be on Powell’s remarks at an online conference later during the US session, which will influence the USD price dynamics and produce some trading opportunities around the EUR/USD pair.