Tomorrow’s market should be very noisy. We’ve got the ECB’s one-year refi operation announcement at 9:15 gmt, the second leg of the Bank’s foray into “non-conventional” or quantitative easing . Last time around, the ECB injected EUR 442 bln into the banking system for 1-year at 1%. This time around, demand is expected to be more modest EUR 135 bln.
If banks absorb significantly more than the market expects, EUR/USD weakness is a likely as traders will take this as a sign that banks continue to have difficulty funding themselves without the aid of the central bank.
Later in the session, as Europe wraps up its day, the London fixing will be in focus as passive investment managers (think index funds) rebalance their dollar holdings. With US markets up 5% this month, there will be plenty of dollars for sale at the fixing to bring the portfolio back into balance.
These two factors may offset one another, but there is a nearly six hour gap between the two events. Nimble traders may get to buy cheap EUR early in the session and chuck them out later as the fixing draws near.
